


Dreading Tomorrow

by Boo_On_The_Brink_Of_A_BreakDown



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Angry Connor, Anxiety, Blood and Violence, Bullying, Dysphoria, High School, Humans Have Powers, I'm Bad At Tagging, If You Squint - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mild Gore, Mild Language, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Multi, Near Death Experiences, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Panic Attacks, Possibly Unrequited Love, Precognition, Quirks, Self-Hatred, Self-Indulgent Shitpost, Semi Confident Evan, Tagging as I go, Violence, Visions, Visions in dreams, anger issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2019-06-22 03:13:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 52,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15572454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boo_On_The_Brink_Of_A_BreakDown/pseuds/Boo_On_The_Brink_Of_A_BreakDown
Summary: Everyone is born with a peculiarity, a little power or ability that furthers them from everyone else. Sometimes its as extraordinary and rare as telekinesis or superhuman strength. Other times its something insignificant as requiring less air to breathe than the norm.Evan discovered his in the second grade while daydreaming in the spare moments he had before recess. He hasn't quite been the same since.





	1. Back To Now

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first archive ever Fic?  
> I don't know where its going but bare with me.  
> I'm working on it.
> 
> Tips are appreciated here.  
> Tell me if this is worth continuing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: Updates are extremely slow and my trash ain't worth waiting for. If you're cool with that, proceed. 
> 
> If not? Run. Find a different story, one that's worth your time, and do it fast.

 

 

The day was going fine and he thought that in the most sincere way possible. Most of it was fuzzy since it was so long ago. With age, his memory of the past had begun to rapidly deteriorate to make room for new information.

 

Like debris floating around in the ocean it all sank eventually. Now it was so far down he couldn’t retrieve it, save for when someone mentioned it. Even then it rarely ever would rise back to the surface. Suppressed and trashed memories were in the deep, dark blue trenches of his mind and frankly, Evan wanted them to stay there.

 

He had let them sink for a reason.

 

 

Elementary, second grade. End of May or early June. The memory was so far down in those trenches he couldn’t tell.

 

Evan was sat at a window seat. Sandwiched between some girl whose face was obscured and a very young looking Jared. So maybe he wasn’t right besides the window…More like a distant neighbor to it.

 

They were all in the computer lab, he liked to believe. Jared was good with technology. He liked to get absorbed in basic games that bored Evan half to death. Only because they were friends did he pretend to show some interest in the masked digits on the screen. For the most part at least. This was back when anxiety was still a such a big and confusing word. The kind that was easier to just skip over when reading.

This was back when he could vocalize what was on his little mind without worrying how he sounded or if anyone had heard him. Back then he didn’t obsess over whether or not saying one wrong thing could permanently damage everything. Back when there was no big picture.

 

It was just now. The present. The presence of contingent dread. It hit him like the realization that the truck in his driveway wasn’t going to coming back. Abrupt. Someone must have dropped a boulder on his chest. An inexplicably heavy weight crushed his lungs so quickly he couldn’t even comprehend breathing. There was just.

 

Pain. 

 

 

Worry. 

 

 

 

Strain.

 

His hands were gripping the blue fabric of his striped shirt, clawing wrinkles into it. As if the action would tear away the sudden compulsion to breathe air. He was breathing fine. What was the problem. What was the problem? His mind grew foggy. What was the problem?!

 

Evan felt a searing pain shoot through his head and his grip on his shirt tightened even more. Something in him was growing. This incessant feeling of unawareness. Something. What was it? A memory? He felt like he was forgetting something and was desperately trying to retrieve it. Something… Something, something…!

 

He hadn’t even been aware that his eyes were closed until he was snapping them back open. Evan twisted his head around so quickly that the movement left a dull ache in his neck. The swivel chair beneath his wobbled precariously. Numbers dotted his vision. Blank faces of those he couldn’t remember, wouldn’t remember, came into view. A long isle of forgotten names and digits sat before him.

 

Everything was gray, dark and colorless. Save for red and blue. The numbers, they were red and blue.

 

Then there was the teacher. Mrs. G, happily married with two kids and a loving husband. How did he remember that? Why did he remember that? Why?

 

Above her head. Like something straight out the movies there were two lines of digits. Perhaps some kind of code — that was what Evan had thought at first. The woman was talking to a tall-for-his-age boy with messy, dirty blonde hair. She had to lean over and set her palms on her thighs to hear his small voice.

 

He saw her shake her head to the boy, murmur something. The boy glared her dead in the eyes and yelled something. Angry. Blacked out faces turned to stare with startled demeanors. The second line digits above her head decreased rapidly.

 

 

_03/17/1987_

_11/4/2050_

 

_03/17/1987_

_08/11/2034_

 

_03/17/1987_

_04/15/2011_

 

 

_03/17/1987_

_05/31/2011_

 

~~ _03/17/1987_ ~~

~~ _05/31/2011_ ~~

 

 

Evan could feel it. When the numbers clicked together with the present date and turned a violent shade of mahogany. It rattled his entire being with such a foreign feeling. The only way he could describe it was if someone had took a stone and threw it down into a bed of calm waters. The ripple. The steady rings that would fan out around the exterior of the impact. The feeling rippled throughout him and a chilling feeling burned behind his eyes.

 

As soon as it came it washed away and he was staring at the colorful birds nesting between the tree branches outside of the window. His entire body tensed up. He flinched at the sudden change. Completely unnerved.

 

Evan was much more than hesitant to turn around when he heard a high pitched yell birthed from anger erupt from behind him. Especially when it was followed up by the loud thud of Ms. G’s body slumping to the ground. Immobile and dead.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

…

 

Upon feeling Jared’s brown eyes bore into his own for way longer than he could be mentally calm with, Evan breathed. He remembered to breathe.

The day was a pretty nice one. The sky was this gentle shade of dusty blue, puffy gray clouds drifting through it. The sun was waking up, doing what it did best. Rising. Bringing a bit more color to the world so everything looked a lot less intimidating.

Early birds fluttered through the skies chirping melodies only they knew. Squirrels were out and about doing their daily normal squirrel things. Like collecting fallen oak nuts from old Quercus trees. Preparing for the hardship that winter would offer them. Preparing for a future half of them didn't have. But ignorance is bliss. Evan really wished he didn't know that some idiot was going to let their dog run free without a leash. Yeah, the normal thing.

Their steps echoed throughout the empty park. Each one accompanied by a soft crackle emanating from the gravel beneath their shoes. It was too early for this. Evan was still drowsy from the nightmares he would never admit to having. They had kept him up for two nights in a fine row.

 

There was this breeze that had ran past them both but Evan shivered first. Then, two or three seconds later so did Jared. Despite it being a little chilly for a warm day in September they decided to walk to school.

Or rather their parents decided they should walk to school because they couldn’t be bothered to drive them that day.

Or rather their parents were busy people with actual jobs and responsibilities, so maybe Evan should be more grateful.

They were still too young to get their driver’s licenses and Evan had a really bad feeling about taking the bus today. He always had a bad feeling about taking the bus. Walking the long cobbled paths of the public park was the last resort. Literal plan Z.

 

 

“Soooo!” Jared piped in to kill the silence growing between them. Kill the silence, make conversation. Act normal, everything is fine. The best way to cope with the ugly truth was with a pretty lie. The first step to making friends.

“What’s today’s rating?” He nudged Evan with his elbow. Gloved hands tucked away in his coat pockets.

Cold, huh?

Evan found it amusing since he had told Jared yesterday it would be cold today. He couldn’t bring himself to smile though.

See, Evan had woken up a day ago drenched in sweat. His room was darker than pen ink and colder than the depths of the ocean. He felt like he was drowning in nothing but black for an entire hour. A whole sixty minutes, three thousand, six hundred seconds.

Inhaling. Inhaling. Inhaling.

Water was washing through and down his lungs. Filling them, flooding them. Asphyxiating him. Nothing but the exhausting demand for air and this uncomfortable burning in his throat and chest.

It felt like someone had shoved a nozzle down his throat and proceeded to empty gasoline into his entire body. Replacing blood and bones with dense liquid and leaving nothing but the faint memory of what it felt like to move. Then there came the match.

He turned his focus to the question though. What was today’s rating? How good of a day would it be. How well could he pretend like a bus filled with children his age wasn't going to drive itself into a river?

Zero being things are bad and ten being one of them scores a girlfriend. Which would never happen. It would never happen.

He didn’t have the heart to break it to Jared.

 

Evan looked around. “I have,” he paused. “wait- hold on…” a bench came into view. They had cut through the park to get to the new school faster. The tall building was in their sights past the shallow blankets of trees. “Let me sit down…”

Evan walked over to the old and worn out bench. He sat down and leaned back against the head rest. The bench groaned in protest, showing off its age with the faint sound of splintering wood. Lucky him he didn’t have to worry about whether it would break or not.

 

Jared continued to stand.

Wise choice.

With the way his foot twitched Evan could tell Jared was resisting to tap it against the ground which would greatly throw him off. A smile itched onto his face at the subtle gesture. And he said they were only ‘family friends,’ yeah. Sure.

 

“Good day then?” Noticing his smile, Jared chimes. Looking a bit hopeful. To his dismay Evan shook his head and shushes him.

Their smiles fade. Evan clasps his hands together in hopes to warm them. Or to stop them from trembling.

His eyes fell shut as he tried actually to center his focus. Not on the present, not on him moving through it.

 

 

Later today…later today…

 

 

 

 

The darkness of the back of Evan’s eyelids gave way to splotches and hues of white washed gray. Faded colors and black figures shadowed around. They were moving around him, past him, up to him.

The figures became more apparition like. Taking shapes of tall and small, lanky and large. He was moving above the world in long strides. His posture felt stiff. There was an odd, gaping hole in his chest. What was it? Fear…? Anger? What was it? Guilt…? Was it guilt? He decided he felt incredibly guilty…

His vision blurred again and abstract faces began to crowd around his tall being. Boys showing off their masculinity through their expensive shoes. Since he was looking down, avoiding gazes.

The floor looked really shiny, he could see the reflection of their smug and ugly faces in it. It was always the reflection. It was Always The Reflections… giving away things.

They were speaking to him but their words were… Like there was a pillow being held over their faces. Nevertheless their tones carried enough venom for him to know—

Another blur…

A small chill ran from the nape of his neck and down his spine. It was quickly replaced with a sudden pain. What the hell?

That was a red flag in its finest.

Pain meant someone was getting hurt. If someone was going to get hurt then today was surely screwed up and over.

 

A metallic clang rung in his ears for a long moment, the sound barely muffling Jared’s grunts of anguish. There was yelling, lots of it. Accusatory and ragged with hot anger.

 

Another blur…He wanted this to stop now. He didn’t need anymore of this.

 

The distinct sound of cameras snapping and videos clicking to life. The pain in his back was nothing compared to the one that met his stomach. Those angry voices only got louder. Static.

 

Stop it. It was too loud. Stop it.

 

It felt like someone had kicked him. But it was fuzzy, as if he weren’t the one being kicked. The pain wasn’t his but he could only sense it. Feel it as he felt a memory.

There was a stone wedged in his throat. Or not his throat. He couldn’t breathe. He could, they couldn’t- he couldn’t…

Stop It, he didn’t want to see anything else. Stopstopstopstop-

 

09/04/2014. Todays date in that mahogany shade of red… a lot of people were going to die.

 

< < <

 

When Evan blinked away the remains of his vision he was shaking violently. This happened far too often. His hands were still locked together. He pressed his forehead against them and breathed. The smell of his own sweat infiltrated his nose. He wanted a shower, he needed a shower.

The ground. His gaze was there now. Beneath the bench a squirrel peeked up at him. He blinked. It stared at him with a semi-expecting look.

The fur around its cinder gray face was ruffled and scathed. Like it had recently been in a gruesome fight. Probably lost his nuts to a much more stronger squirrel. Or was one of the unfortunate some that couldn't outrun the dog. Its little beady eyes flickered. Tiny breaths pooled around its little mouth. A trickle of red slithered down.

It was dying and in its eyes he could see a reflection of himself. The numbers above his head. Were…perfectly fine. Relief pooled through his entire body. A bucket of ice cold water had doused the growing fire of his worry. He wasn’t going to die today. Everything was going to be okay, right?

He was living and it was dying…what did that mean?

 

“Evan?” Jared’s worried voice snatched his attention away from the ground. Nothing was there, the squirrel was gone. Or rather it had never been there in the first place. Surely it was going to be there though, eventually. It was going to die there. Right beneath where he was sitting.

“Dude, you’re shaking worst than a slut in December. If today’s that bad we can just not go.” Evan wasn’t going to try to make sense of that sentence. He gathered up the scraps of his broken composure and stood up.

“I promised my mom I’d go today.” He lied but there was truth in his words. Evan never said he would attend today but he did promise that he would at least have a look. Most parents didn't let their kids go to school on the first day. Nobody likes the first day of school, everyone's on edge and a lot of people get hurt. Death wasn't the least to be expected.

Besides if someone was actually going to die then there was a chance that he could stop it. And if he stopped someone from dying maybe people would notice and think of him as some sort of hero. Then he would become known as that cool guy who saved someone’s life and Zoe Murphy would finally notice him. Then she would realize how much of an amazing guy (he was internally laughing at himself now) he was and then they'd date.

Wishful thinking, he knew.

“There’s literally always a tomorrow.” Jared looked skeptical. His words emphasized by the way Evan stumbled.

Evan caught his breath. “Easy for you to say,” he leaned against the old bench. It creaked loudly. If he didn’t get it together it would collapse beneath his weight.

He watched as the expression on Jared’s face contorted into raw fear. Before he could assume the worst, Evan tried cutting him off with an explanation to a question never asked.

“T-there is a tomorrow! Ah, obviously…” His hands shook in the air dismissively. As if he were trying to wash an invisible window.

Jared sighed in relief but Evan couldn’t share the enthusiasm. His eyes flickered upwards. They narrowed. Focusing…

A moment later the two lines of numbers glitched into existence. They were a fine ochre yellow, not green. Green meant he was safe and out of danger. Green meant he was far from the inevitable doom that every human had a predisposition to. Yellow. Meant. Danger.

He tore his hand away from the bench before it could creak again. Evan forced himself to approach and return to the cobble path. He felt nauseous, furthering himself from the bench.

Jared pulled his phone from his pocket, “We have, like five minutes before homeroom.” He announced then moved to place his phone in his back pocket. Not in his coat pocket. For some reason Evan found that unsettling. A disgusting amount of concern came over him.

Before Evan even knew what he was doing he was grabbing Jared’s sleeve. Tugging his arm back. “Don’t.”

There was a moment of quizzical silence. The abrupt display of blatant concern along side physical contact? Tension gradually began to pollute the air around them. Like a suffocating smoke.

Evan let go of Jared’s arm and took a step back. He muttered a barely coherent apology. That was out of character of him.

“You’re acting weird.” Jared says. He shoves his phone into his coat pocket and the numbers above his head drift to a lighter shade. A starburst candy lemon kind of yellow. Which meant whatever Evan was doing was working. It was prolonging his life. If it meant Jared got to live longer Evan gladly would throw his caution to the wind. He could be some sort of an ass at times but that was just a pitiful defense mechanism. If anyone deserved it- to live. It was Jared. He needed time to grow into a person he could finally be proud of. He just needed time.

 

“A-am I?” Evan laughed nervously. The tension thickened.

“I’m just- you know what.” Jared twisted on his heels. Facing towards the other direction. Away from the school. “I’m going back home.” He shook his head. Evan watched him glance over is shoulder. Probably confused to see the immense relief on his face.

Above his head, the numbers flicked further away from today’s date and returned to a cool shade of green. Jared was going to be fine.

One less person was going to die.


	2. School's Fun, Eh?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...two chapters in one day, read em, rate em.
> 
> Enjoy?

His endurance was being tested. 

 

The homeroom teacher wanted everyone to individually step up in front of the class and introduce themselves. So, Evan asked to go to the bathroom before she could even propose the idea.

 

The last time a teacher had called him up to the front of the class he nearly had a mental break. He was so focused on the red numbers above this one kid’s head he couldn’t think of anything else but them. And how they would die. And how he wasn't able to do anything to prevent it. That's how most of his school days went. This was nothing new but that didn't mean it affected him any less. Every day he walked past someone with a set of red numbers. It always happened. He was always being reminded that while he got to see another day that one person, whoever they might be, was not going too. And yet he still had the audacity to pray that he didn't wake up the next day. 

 

He went straight to his first period class where his teacher there scolded him for skipping homeroom. She could read minds so his lies about not knowing where the room was were futile. Then she explained that every class was required to do that so if someone had a more dangerous power steps to avoid casualties could ensue.

 

She gave him a pass though and explained to the class for him. Like a toddler too scared to say _‘hi’_ he just shrank. He was glad Jared wasn't there to see. Surely, he would have called him pathetic.

 

Second and third period felt like torture. The teachers were siblings, notorious for giving the hardest of tests. Some girl who happened to be in most of his classes said she pitied him. A lot of other students did too. Whether they vocalized it or not Evan could tell just by the way they looked at him. The kid who could see into the future. Yeah, those were the lost causes. It made sense though, who would want to live knowing that their future wasn't bright? What a useless power.

 

Fourth period…Fifth, Six, Seventh and eighth period. Nothing. Nothing happened.

 

 

The disappointment was so cold he could have been frozen alive by it. Evan had fallen asleep during his lunch period. One of the custodians had told him off for it since she couldn’t go home until he went out. Today wasn’t half as exciting as he thought it’d be. 

 

No meeting Zoe Murphy and starting the beginning of their life long love and marriage. 

 

Feeling utterly deflated he shuffled through the half empty hallways towards his locker. Most if not everyone had heard the bell and made a sharp beeline for the exit. School was over about three minutes ago. The busses had already begun to make their departure. Yet he was still lingering around, trying to push away his debris of his crushed dreams.

 

He supposed that telling Jared not to go to school today made something change. Now everything was normal. Great…fantastic. 

 

Evan rolled in the combination to his locker and tugged on the lock which wouldn’t budge. Just his luck. He reset the dial, tried again. Click, tug and it still wouldn’t budge.That was fine, this was okay.

 

He tried again, roll, click, tug. Wouldn’t budge. His hands began to shake. 

 

 

Again. 

 

Roll. 

 

Click. 

 

Tug.

 

Again. 

 

Roll. 

 

Click. 

 

Tug.

 

 

Again. 

 

Roll. 

 

Click. 

 

Tug.

 

Ag- **MOVE**.

 

 

Something within Evan screamed so loudly that his body was obeying the command long before he even knew what he was being commanded to do. Instinctively he whipped around to see what he was trying to hard to avoid.

 

His pupils constricted with shock. And oh god if his heart kept beating this fast it might actually jump out of his chest, grow a pair of legs and run for the stairs. The staircase was awfully close.

 

Before him, just where he had been standing the air ripped itself in half. A gaping orange tear took its place, a literal tear in thin air. It looked so precise, a clean incision. The kind the surgeons made. The orange rip levitated in the air for a long moment. Its luminous form casting a faint tangerine glow over everything in its vicinity. 

 

In the back of Evan’s mind he wondered if it would have split his entire body in a clean half if he hadn’t moved. His stomach twisted in worry at the thought and somewhere in the pit of it there was...disappointment. The year old backpack he was given as a half-hearted gift from his father was now in tatters. Black and gray material fluttered to the ground. A small lunch Heidi had packed him now found its way to the tiled floor. Obliterated and torn into a mess of mushy pieces. Bits of paper, like feathers floated down to the ground. Every school owned textbook that once resided in what could no longer be called a back pack, gone. It was just completely gone. All of it. How was it at times he could hate his power so much when it saved his life so often?

 

The rip flickered haphazardly. A flurry of ember sparks poured out of it and like a flame it cackled. Not even a second later Evan could tell something was getting ready to come out of it. Whatever it was. A portal, probably. But who in the world had the power to open portals? Probably a dangerous person.

 

Another something, his sixth sense at this point hatched a devil in his stomach. Which proceeded to claw away at his insides until he wanted to puke up all his severed organs. Something bad was going to happen. No matter what he did from this point on someone was going to get hurt. But it was up to him to decide how hurt they were going to get.

Okay, okay. Evan closed his eyes and tried to focus on recollecting his composure. It kept falling apart. He made a mental note buy some glue for that. He had a few seconds.

 

Five seconds, he breathed.

 

Four seconds, everything was fine.

 

Three seconds, ready as he’ll ever be.

 

Two seconds, he could do this.

 

One second, _oHNonoONONONo_ he wanted out this was **not** a good idea anymore.

 

Without any further warning a loud crash rattled the long line of lockers along the wall. It traveled down the hall. Then the portal roared, growing like a fire as it hacked up a concerning amount of crimson liquid onto the ground. Next came an entire body. What the actual fu-

 

As Evan watched in a mixture of absolute horror and pure confusion as the body flinched and hauled itself up. That wasn’t a body- it wasn’t a corpse. It was a person— but they looked dead.

 

No..no, they looked like they should be dead. Even if Evan could only see their back side the deep gashes and wounds that tore up every inch of this person’s body said enough. Their wore dark gray clothing and pitch black, slashed up pants. The smell of blood was so protrudent it was actually nauseating. 

 

That somehow didn’t stop Evan from reaching out to grab their scarred arm. Blood seemed to bathe every inch of this stranger. But they were in danger- if that wasn’t apparent enough.

 

“Don’t fucking touch me.” The hostility in the stranger’s voice was downright intoxicating. Evan could have fallen in love with their voice right then and there but there was a time and place for things like that. This was not the time or the place. At all.

 

Without thinking because his brain was still so focused on how much blood was spilling out onto the floor, Evan yanked the stranger’s arm. He had not expected them to be so lightweight but that might have something to do with. All. The. _BLOOD_.

 

His mind was definitely gone now, it was racing far, far away from here. His head was an empty space left for his instincts to take over. What to do, what to do. Where the stranger had been once there was now an immeasurably sharp hatchet stuck in the ground.

 

So his power had saved two people to day, yay! Brain please come back, Evan couldn’t think straight. It might have been the amount of blood that was now lathering around his hand. He realized then that he had a death grip on the stranger’s arm which looked disgustingly mutilated. 

 

With a sharp intake he snatched his hand away and scrambled to his feet. The blood beneath his shoes squelched and dragged him back down. Splashing it on his once beige pants and all over the stranger’s long hair. It didn’t really matter though because their face and hair had already been bloodied but now it was just drenched.

 

“ _OhmygodimreallysosososorryIdidn’t_ -” Evan began only to ramble. His brain, which decided to make an appearance for once told him he had to apologize. It was the polite thing but he had been cut off, just like how he cut off Jared this morning.

 

“Shut up.” The stranger snapped and consequentially the demanding urge to apologize Evan felt only grew.

 

“ImsosorryIshouldntevenbesayinganythingelseandyet-mmhbjf” The stranger classed their bloody hand around Evan’s mouth and if it weren’t for the fact that his brain was gone he might’ve screamed. Might have. Because it was either that or the other runner-ups like puking. The smell of blood was ten times as stronger as it was before. He could actually taste it in the back of his mouth. His vision hazed, focused on nothing in particular.

 

“Shhh…not a sound.” The stranger’s tone was hushed and low. There was nothing remotely reassuring about it. The rip behind them flickered again then zipped itself closed and out of existence. Just like that. It had came, nearly killed him then spit out this blooded stranger that now had their hand over his mouth. And he was just…

 

As a few more moments passed the stranger seemed to find some trust in Evan andmoved their hand away. Which was great because now he felt like he could breathe without wanting to vomit. His entire body was slumped against the lockers for support, his stained shirt only thing standing between him and a cold metal surface.

 

Evan drew his sleeve over his mouth to wipe away the blood and took a long breath just to make sure he still could. His heart was quivering and it pierced his chest whenever he took a deep breath. His mind kept replaying what had just happened while trying to keep up with what was happening.

 

What was happening?

 

In the distance he could hear a stampede of footsteps trucking through the halls. Most likely the security, hopefully. The uncertain fog around his eyes lifted. All he saw was red.

 

The stranger before him was painted in red. Their hair clung to their face, what he assumed to be brown or dirty blonde looked black from the blood. They had their head down, scribbling some weird shapes onto the small portion of the ground that wasn’t stained.

 

“How-” Evan’s breath got caught in his throat. He inhaled, exhaled, “what are you, no, why-”

 

“If you keep talking I’m going to have to kill you too.” The stranger said in a nonchalant tone. One that made a shiver run down his spine. He kept talking. What the hell was wrong with him? Jared was right he was acting weird today.

 

Evan coughed out, “I just saved your life.” 

 

“Yeah, fuck you for that.” The stranger snaps to him. 

Wow rude, Evan bit his lip. 

 

“What are you drawing?” He tried to change the subject, why was he even still talking? It was obvious this guy wanted nothing to do with him. He pulled his legs closed to his chest and hugged them. Working on his breathing as the stranger responded.

 

“A way for me to get out of here, now be fucking quiet. I’m trying to focus” They spit blood out onto the ground then with a wet snap of their fingers another orange rip appears. It splits open the floor, glowing faintly as it had before. But it was visibly more dim, less inviting.

 

“W-what about me?” Evan blurts out. Man, was he talkative today. Was it shock? Was he in such a state of complete shock that he became chill? If it was shock then than meant he would eventually be dragged back into reality. He didn’t want to be covered in blood when that happened. He would _freak_.

 

“If you come with me there’s no telling where we could end up.” The stranger explains as blood spurts from a gruesome looking wound on their side. They pay it no mind. It didn’t take Evan very long to make up his own. 

 

He could warp himself somewhere random or walk out those front doors for everyone to see him covered in blood. If this stranger died then he would be the first suspect in his death. His blood was literally everywhere. The hatchet was still very well behind them and while sure, he didn’t touch it but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t get framed. 

 

“If you’re coming you have to go first, otherwise it might close and cut you in half or something.” That last part made him tense up. What if he jumped through to the portal-rip-tear thing and somehow managed to glitch himself outside of existence? Then he would just be stuck surrounded by nothing but darkness and his own thoughts as his body gradually began to age while he was just there. Or what if the stranger was lying and he was walking right into a trap? What if they were warped into a weird cellar thing filled with toxic gas that made them pass out. And when they finally woke up they were missing their internal organs and kidneys?! What. The. Actual. Fuck.

 

He was shaking again, hands trembling uncontrollably. Much to his dismay his brain had finally decided to come back home and screw him over again. The only thing could do was breath now and that was becoming increasingly difficult. Because his lungs were trying to push out all the carbon dioxide while simultaneously pulling in an unnecessary amount of oxygen. And it felt like the carbon was getting mixed with the oxygen so now he was pulling in more carbon dioxide the actual air and his breathing was becoming really counterproductive really quick. And…and..and…and..

 

“Are you going to sit there and cry or are you going make up your god damn mind?” 

 

He was crying? When, since when was he crying why was he crying in front of this obviously deranged person that could open up portals and not feel pain what the hell. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe, _fucking inhale_ -

 

Evan coughed, shaking his head. Now he could feel the tears dripping into the corner of his eyes. Clinging to his eyelashes for dear life. He blinked them away and…inhaled deeply.

 

“I’m, yeah, okay…I’ll go first.” He swallowed the lump growing in his throat. This rock that managed to appear from out of no where. Why was it there and why couldn’t he relax for a good five seconds and focused on the fact that he wasn’t in any _dangerbecauseifhewashewouldbeabletotell._

 

He could see into the future for Christ’s sake if he was walking into some kind of rape dungeon or creepy cornfield _he. would. know. goddamn **it**. _

 

Clinging onto that fact as reassurance he eased his concerns and slinked towards the portal with great hesitance. Shaking, he reached his hand out and-

 

“Waitwaitwaitwait NooooOoo-”The stranger shoved him in. And he was falling.

 

 

down….

 

down…

 

down..

 

down.


	3. Strolling With Strangers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayyyyyyyy ;)

 

 

The impact of his fall left an unpleasant ache in his wrist. The smell of blood was washed away when his face collided with the dirt. Rich soil and broken leaves crunched beneath his body.

 

Evan groaned but forced himself to roll over before the stranger fell into the same spot he had landed. Sure enough a few seconds later. They had.

 

“Oh, we’re alive.” The blatant disinterest was clear in the stranger’s voice. Evan didn’t have the strength to want to know what that was supposed to mean. He pulled himself up from off of the ground and leaned against a nearby tree. Surveying the land around him. 

 

Trees. 

 

Many of them, actually.

 

Many, many, of them...

 

If there was just a few and then in the distance some kind of sign of something, anything else. Maybe then Evan would feel calmer than what he felt right now. But no. That wasn’t the case because today was going to be a bad day…they were in the middle of the forest. A full on, scarily dense forest.

 

The stranger managed to pull themselves onto their feet. Despite being- well in the condition that they were in. Evan was seriously questioning what was in the school’s lunch. There was no way this guy could still be breathing with the amount of blood on them. Running down them. There was a soaking puddle of it forming at their feet.

 

Were they some kind of immortal being or ghost? Actually, cross out the ghost part. Evan shook his head, ghosts couldn’t be touched and he definitely had grabbed this guy. The evidence was right on his hand which was now sticky with blood and dirt. Bits of broken leaves clung to his palms.

Gross, gross…very gross. He wiped it all off on his pants. There was no hope for them anyway. No amount of vinegar or hydrogen peroxide was going to get those stains out.

 

 

“Do you have your phone on you?” The question registered in his head before the stranger had said it. He was already making a move for his phone which was in his back pocket. A bad feeling began to creep into his stomach. Accompanied by the newfound pain in his thumb upon pulling the device out. 

His breath hitched, the screen was broken. Well, no _broken_ was an understatement. It was completely shattered and caving in on itself. Shards of glass were poking into his thumb and palm now. He must have accidentally smashed it when he fell earlier. Slipping on blood, his new worst enemy. How incredibly pathetic.

 

Evan glanced up to the stranger, their piercing brown eyes were glaring daggers into his very existence. He could feel his heart gradually slow until it came to a steady stop. Then it picked up again, beating fast enough so that it washed away all the worry from his system.

 

…

 

That was quite strange.

 

“I um, it's broken.” Evan worked up the courage to speak. He felt oddly relaxed but his hands still trembled. He resisted to grip at his phone as he held it up to show the stranger. In response they scoffed and muttered something beneath their breath. There was no point in putting it back in his pocket but he did. This time in his coat pocket like he should have. Like how Jared did.

 

 

“Any clue where we are?” The stranger inquired, nonchalant.

 

Evan rolled his shoulders into a shrug, “I dunno, a forest?”

 

“No kidding, dipshit.” 

 

 

Evan would have commented on their foul language out of habit, but something warned him not to. His sixth sense, probably. He could tell just by their tone. He felt like he was a few feet away from a ticking time bomb, or a grenade with the pin missing. He’d be digging his own grave by getting smart. The best idea might have been to just not say anything at all. So he didn’t.

 

They remained silent for a very long time, just looking around for anything. Something that could be of use to show them where they were. Besides the obvious, being in a forest surrounded by trees with rich dusty brown bark, of course. Sunlight peeked through the vibrant moss green pine leaves. Their branches didn’t stretch very far which left room for plenty of sun. However they where all intimidatingly tall. Falling from the top of one could kill them. Not that they would be climbing any, he hoped. But climbing the tree didn’t sound like such a bad idea. It would give them both a brief visual of where they were.

 

“I could, um we could…No wait, one of us could climb o-one of the trees and like. Yeah.” Great sentence Evan, ten out of ten communication skills. He was not being placed in AP English for this bull-fuckery. He was just silently hoping the stranger wouldn’t pull a Jared and make fun of him for it. If he was extremely lucky they would get the gist of what he was trying to say.

  

 

“Do I look like a goddamn squirrel to you or something? I’m not climbing up a fucking tree.” The stranger spat and Evan shouldn’t have been half as relieved as he was to get that response. He snickered to himself and rolled his eyes.

 

“What? What’s funny? Do you think I look like a fucking squirrel?” 

 

Evan shrank into the tree behind him. Moving as close as he could towards it. This had taken a sharp turn. He vigorously shook his head. But his mind flickered back to the squirrel he had saw earlier. At the park. Its face was bruised and scratched up just like the stranger’s.

 

“N-n-no of course-”

 

“Of course? OF Fucking Course!" The stranger threw their hands up in the air, swatting the wind so violently that it elicits a faint but audible slice. "You know what. Fuck you." They point an accusatory finger in his direction, practically seething and foaming at the mouth. Like a rabid dog, unpredictable and snapping its rigid jaws around anything it could. A predator waiting for the perfect time to pounce. This was the time, the little golden hour, it was here and they were aiming for his throat with some sort of previously repressed rage. 

 "I hope you climb that tree and snap your stupid fucking neck!"

 

Where had that come from?! What did he do, _what did I do_? 

 

“That’s not-” Evan began, feeling the color rise to his face from the burning embarrassment. Lucky him no one else was around because at least then if he cried only one person would see it. And with how angry they were there was no way this guy could be an actual person. Evan had never seen someone get so angry before. Not in real life at least.

 

“That’s not what? Are you sorry? I bet you are you stupid fucking loser. I would be too if I was such a damn cry baby.” The stranger storms off into a random direction. Evan could feel the rapid change of his heart beat, his blood. It ran cold. An aggressive wave of dread pooled around him. He could not let this guy leave him alone in the middle of the forest next to a pool of blood. 

 

Evan scrambled to his feet and sprinted to catch up with them, coming to a firm halt when they paused to turn around. Staring down at him with a rage Evan was sure only they had the power to conjure. He could tell that look was supposed to be menacing or maybe even threatening but upon meeting he couldn’t help but to feel…relief.

 

This immense relief. His heart slowed again, returning it its normal pace. If not a tad bit slower than before. He could breathe. He didn’t even need to catch his breath. He could just breathe.

 

“What is with you?” The stranger avoided his gaze, “don’t look at me like that you freak.”

 

“Like what?” It seemed as if the entire squirrel thing had been dropped. Perhaps the stranger too had no intention of being alone in the middle of the forest. Maybe he was just as relieved as Evan was. Or maybe he was looking too far into it.

 

“Like _that_ ,” the stranger pointed out. Evan continued to stare with a now rather bemused expression. “You look like you're staring at some kind of mythical fucking creature. You aren’t even scared, what the hell is wrong with you?”

 

Evan blinked. He tilted his head to regain the stranger’s ‘harsh’ gaze. He didn’t. They turned away and began to walk. That didn’t mean they didn’t want an answer though,  Evan shrugged despite them not being able to see and followed in suit.

 

“Why should I be scared?” He wondered aloud, answering a question with a question. Jared did that often. Perhaps he was spending too much time around Jared…then again he was his only frie- family friend.

 

 

“Because everyone who has ever looked me in the eyes has died.” There was a hint of solemn in the stranger’s voice but Evan was still too…out of it to pick up on it. One sentence and his entire being was rattled so fiercely his composure nearly fell apart. Collapsed in on itself. His mind temporarily decided to erase itself. No amount of anything could make him not. Just.

 

Just.

 

Just.

 

“What the fuck-” Evan hadn’t meant to say it. He really hadn’t. But his brain was lost and his mind was lost and every shred of his remaining composure was in shambles. So he cursed and there was no way the stranger could know he wasn’t comfortable with saying a curse word. There was no way he could make fun of him for it either because he hadn’t ever not said the word ‘fuck’. Even when he was thrown out of the portal the first thing he said to Evan was…

 

“That’s my line.” His voice, that voice. It sounded amused, he totally noticed his use of foul language. 

 

Brain was coming back- thinking process was being assessed. 

 

Breathe in, breath out.

 

A few more moments of lingering silence. The only sound. Crunching, cracking. Breathing. The air was so clean. They were walking aimlessly through the forest. A forest. If they were lucky then they could find shelter before it got too dark to see. Which would be soon. Summer and fall had long said goodbye which meant that the days were shorter and it got dark quicker.

He felt himself relax despite the situation. Another emotion brewed somewhere within him that left his remaining thoughts a bit muddled. 

  _I'm okay._ He thought and to his surprise he believed it. No shaky breath, no swimming vision...his heart was quiet and docile in his chest. He bit his lip, gaze shifting off to the side and fixating on nothing in particular.  _I'm alive, everything's fine._

 

“Is that…um, how are you even alive?” Trying to break the silence, Evan spoke up again.

 

“Howare you even alive, Crybaby?” The stranger shot back, shaking their head.

 

  _Why do you sound as disappointed as I feel?_

 

“I’m just trying to make conversation.” Evan replied hesitantly. “Like...what if we’re walking for a long time?” He watched droplets of blood spill onto the forest ground and stain it. If they traded places and Evan was the one all cut up and bloody he'd be dead by now and...that wouldn't be so bad.

_Wow, wouldn't it be a shame if a bear or other, large predatory animal were to track us and make that situation a reality._

 

Anyone could follow such a long, consistent trail of blood. That would be a bright side if it hadn’t meant that the stranger would eventually bleed out. A trail meant they could retrace their steps which was something he had learned to do whenever he got lost.

 

The stranger grumbled. “What if I don’t like your voice, Tree-boy?” 

 

“Well I can’t change that so how about you just deal and not make fun of me for it?” Evan tried to hide the edge in his voice. 

That was one of his worst fears. Someone he liked ( _not that he liked this stranger who was covered in blood, Nononono_ ) not liking the way he sounded. It was something that no matter how hard he tried he wouldn’t be able to change. So his very existence would just be annoying to that person. Whenever they thought of him they would just associate him with his voice and then his voice with being super irritating and consequentially HE would be super irritating.

 

He couldn’t stand the thought of it.

 

“Fucktart. I don’t need a dumb lecture on how to be nice to people. Alright?”

 

“Are you just going to insult me by calling me random names? Because I think thats stupider than anything I’ve said and done so far.” Evan countered, earning a huff of amusement.

 

" _Stupider_.” The stranger scoffed. Evan tried to hide his the way his face tinted in color. “I’m searching for the best one, shithead.” This guy was full of weird surprises, all of which either being pleasant or terrifying with no in between. 

 

“I could just tell you my actual name.” Evan proposed, his proposition was shut down immediately.

 

“Nah, Loser. That takes the fun out of it.” This stranger rose his hand and waved it dismissively. 

 

Silence. Walking. Leaves crunching. Soil shifting. Blood dripping. Birds where chirping, squirrels where running. The sun was…well the sun was the same.

 

“So, uh...what’s your name?” Evan pushed his hands in his pockets. He bit his tongue to stop himself from hissing when his hand slid across the broken glass of his phone screen. There was a discomfort in his palm, he wanted to think that it wasn’t…like, bleeding. There was enough blood already.

 

“I really want you to shut the fuck up, Tramp.” The stranger tells him but Evan can sense that that isn’t really the case. Communication may not have been his strong suit but even he could take a hint. This was code word for continue and it was all in the tone.

 

“We could play... t-twenty questions, I ask and you, um... you answer. You ask, I answer. Rinse, w-wash and repeat.”

The stranger laughed dryly, “ _hell_ no.”

 

“Oh...kay then, so um... then I-I can ask questions, like what’s your name?” Evan pressed. Intent on learning the name of the person who was covered in blood and leading him through forest. At least then when he got murdered and chopped up with his body parts somehow on the black market, he’d know the name of his killer. At least.

 

With a groan they began to walk faster, "You must really enjoy talking. Huh?"

Evan cracked a smile. "No, a-actually I hate it. I stumble over my words, a-and say words like 'stupider' all of the time and uh, I um, ramble...I ramble all the time which people find annoying— you probably find it annoying too — I know I do. But that's not- like - why would you care what I think, we just met...um, but yeah. Silence is worse so..."

The stranger glanced over his shoulder for a moment, fixing him with an unamused expression.  “I think I have a better idea.”

 

“I’m all ears.” Evan hums.

 

“For every question I answer honestly you have to do be a favor.” The stranger says. _What kind of rules are those?_ The completely unfair kind. Surely. But it was agree to that or let the quiet nature grasp his attention. Which for every reason he didn’t want to happen.

 

He liked nature more than most. Trees especially. But risking seeing some kind of shadowy figure in the distance. Hiding behind a tree with a hatchet or some generic murder weapon, he would probably cry. It had dawned on him that the stranger wasn’t going to die. So that meant he would be the only one in danger.

 

“Okay sure.” Evan nodded and pushed away the entire thought. “Name- full name. Not like your um, middle name. Your first name.” 

 

“Its Connor. You have to let me use your shower now. By the way, if I go home looking like this my dad will actually kill me.” The stranger— Connor says. Its something quite out of the blue and so incredibly specific Evan had to wonder if he had planned to ask that all along.

 

“Wow, um..” Evan swallowed down his momentary shock. “I didn’t think the favors where going to be like _that_.”

 

“Like what?” There’s this strange, underlying hostility in his voice now.

 

“I um, well. I-i dunno, that was just really…s-specific?” Evan sighs and shakes out the next thought that decided to waltz into his mind. “Can I um, wait can we do a-an agreement. Gentlemen’s agreement?”

 

“Well it d-depends.” Connor mocked his stutter. Evan felt his face redden with embarrassment. Another thing he couldn’t, for the life of him change.

 

“The favors…” Evan took a breath. He tried to focus his attention on every word he was going to say. Desperately trying to avoid stuttering. “…they can’t be like, you know-”

 

“I don’t know.” Connor cut him off, Evan spoke over him.

“-they can’t be inappropriate or anything.”

 

Connor looked over his shoulder, raising a brow. He gave him this suggestive, quizzical look and Evan couldn’t explain why he liked it so much. He should’ve been scared. This person that he had only known for a firm half an hour was covered in blood and violent body wounds. What could possibly be getting him excited? He couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t leave him questioning his sanity. Being a teenager sucked. When did everything become so invoking?

 

“Like what?” 

 

“Just like, a-anything inappropriate.”

 

Connor was persistent, “the specifics being?”

 

“I don’t know…maybe, um. Just nothing physical. N-no physical contact related favors.” Evan turned his gaze to the ground. The amount of blood that was dripping onto it seemed to decrease. That or it was just due to the fact that they had been walking faster than before.

 

“So let me get this straight, because you don’t sound it.” Evan was far too distracted by the faint remains of shamrock green grass poking through the earthy soil. Or at least he was trying to be. He could only really hope Connor wasn't implying what he thought he was implying. “I ask you if I can take a shower at your place and your brain immediately snaps to _physical contact_?”

 

When he put it that way, aloud, it sounded a lot worse than it did in Evan’s head. He could feel his face warming rapidly. His cheeks must have been a bright shade of vermillion by now. Nothing could be this embarrassing. He had to change the subject quickly before this conversation spiraled out of—

 

Evan squeaked, “Ow!” Upon bumping into Connor who, for whatever reason thought it was a smart idea to just stop walking. This was becoming ridiculous. He wished the taller would just open up another warp hole and transport them anywhere else. Somewhere more public where there was a place he could call his mother- his mother. 

 

Oh god, she would be worried sick.

 

Wait no she was doing a double shift, she wouldn’t be home until passed midnight. Even then there was no telling if she would ever come back. Sometimes she stayed out for three days straight. Since her little power was that she required no sleep. It made sense that she would work for as long as possible. Evan inherited a shred of this. He could go two days without feeling even a little bit tired.

 

“I’ve got it.” Connor said quietly. A genuine half smile, or smirk itching onto his stained features. He vaguely reminded Evan of a serial killer he had saw in a movie once but that only made more excitement stir. Then he was sure something was very wrong with him.

“You’ve got what?” Evan asks just as quietly. Unsure if they should be speaking in hushed tones or not.

 

“Your new nickname, dumbass.”

 

Oh God, whatever it was it would probably stick. Connor sounded so sure of himself when he had said it. Like with every word he was just so certain. Confident.

 

“W-what is it?”

 

There was a dramatic pause for dramatic effect. Evan chewed at his lower lip in anticipation. For someone would could tell what people where going to say five seconds before they even said anything, it sure felt like an hour long wait. The longer he stared the longer Connor paused, just staring with a smug expression. He hated it. Well, not hated it and not really disliked it because even drenched in blood this guy was inexplicably, kinda cute. So if he could look this good when covered in blood he had to look some kind of _fine_ squeaky clean. And what the literal hell was Evan even thinking? Was he still in shock or was he high? Did he get high off the school lunch? He had barely know this guy for an hour, if not less! How could he already be exploring the possibilities. Maybe he had some kind of pervy blood fetish. That could do a lot more explaining than being high or in shock did. A lot more.

 

“Acorn.” Connor must have said this after two minutes of complete silence had passed and Evan was snatched from his train of thought. Aghast.

 

“ _Acorn_?” Of all things. There were so many more nicknames out there. Pet names even, from simple to suggestive and he picked freaking Acorn. A NUT. No, a fruit- both in its own way. Not the point. The point was Evan had somehow managed to get his hopes up for something spicy. Now he was being met with this childish, silly joke of a name. No one was going to take someone named ‘acorn’ seriously.

 

“Why Acorn? Even fucktart sounds better than that. You could have chosen tree-boy, yet you go with Acorn?” Evan scoffed. Clearly disappointed with the results. Which told Connor he was pretty invested in this whole naming thing. Which meant his next selection of words would really get beneath his skin.

 

“Well Acorn is the only thing I can think of that can perfectly captures your current demeanor.” Connor hums out, his gaze raking over Evan. “Hard and falling for me during September.”

 

 

oH GOD-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. You Haven't Got A Clue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan is flustered so he gets defensive.  
> Connor isn't so amused by it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ Edit

 

 

 

 

Evan desperately tugged at the hem of shirt. Dried blood had crusted and flaked around its edges making the once soft fabric disgusting to the touch. Not that he had the current mind to care about that.

 

His focus had been snatched and inequitably divided between trying to conceal his excitement from Connor’s engrossed staring and figuring out why his heart was beating so quickly. The organ made specifically to pump blood and oxygen to his lungs and brain was doing the exact opposite of what it should. Why even have it when the only thing it was going to do was be counterproductive to its use?

 

 

“You know there’s no use in trying to hide it if I’ve already-”

 

 

“Shut up!” Even if Evan had wanted there to be, there wasn’t a shred of confidence or force in his voice. If there was an onlooker to this conversation it would surely be reduced to the equivalence of a kitten hissing at a dog— no. A bear.

 

  _What a god awful analogy._

 

 Evan was wondering how long it would before he erupted into tears because he felt a little overexposed. 

 

Connor snickers. “ _Oh!_ I didn’t know acorns could bark, maybe Treeboy was a more appropriate name.” 

  

“N-not funny, Connor.”

 

“You’re laughing.”

 

 

“O-only because,” He had to pause just to breathe, “If I-I-I don't...I- i'll—” 

"You'll what?" Connor tested. "Cry?" 

"Wha— No, n-no..." Evan shook his head, hoping to shake the flush of color in his face. His eyes burned with embarrassment as he tried to defend himself. Honestly, he didn't know why he bothered. It shouldn't have been this hard but it was and he shouldn't have even tried but he did.

 

At this Connor could only bring himself to stare. Taking a long moment to decode the slurred babble, a plea mostly. Arms folding across his chest. He looked a little disappointed. 

 

It wasn’t the type of stare that was meant to charm but instead the kind that made Evan feel more pathetic than he already was. This judgmental look that told him he could never ever amount to anything. His very existence was degrading.

 

Connor wasn’t staring at Evan anymore, he was looking at a broken creature with no chance in the real world. A bird with two broken wings, a pencil with no point or eraser. The most lost of causes amongst lost causes. The brand of candy that nobody wanted or the flavor of ice-cream that went overlooked. Something so insignificant and hopeless it never took any effort to just…pity. And with just a bit of understanding, the ghost of a smile Evan couldn't miss. He met Connor's eyes and could hear him wordlessly say:  _i've been there._ But then he looked away and fell silent. And it was like it had never happened.

 

“If you’re expecting an apology you won’t get one.” Connor said after a long moment. In that moment he realized there was no way he could keep looking at Evan like he was a potential chew toy. 

 

It was clear that he lacked the emotional stability to handle a falling out. And if Connor had a shred of a conscience he might have felt bad for him. Or felt sorry, hell maybe even guilty.

 

 

But he didn’t and any part of him that did dissipated very, very quickly. So quickly, in fact that it felt like it had never been there in the first place. He was left with an all too familiar feeling. Boredom. It was worst than it sounded. 'Bored' was his little umbrella term for what he could't convey with words. An insatiable boredom that could drive him to the brink of insanity, then drag him right back to square one. 

It was a smothering feeling, an intense pressure constantly weighing him down and all he could do to fight it off was suffer. Every waking day was a fight and every single day he didn't have the mental energy to deal with anything else. So screw the other feelings, screw feeling bad for himself and most certainly others. He couldn’t care less whether Evan cried and broke down into an inconsolable state of distress. It's not like they were friends. The only considerate thing he could do now was leave him but he wouldn’t do that. After all. He’d just be bored again.

 

Evan sniffled. He somehow managed to stop himself from crying; though Connor could tell he really wanted to. Probably needed to as well. 

 

It wasn’t healthy to bottle emotions like that, but what did Connor know? He was the one contemplating the serendipities of killing him. 

 

The cons were that he would get bored of the silence pretty quickly. The pros were that he could use the practice. The last three guys didn’t go down as quick as he would have liked. Severing the abdominal aorta was not as easy as it sounded and stabbing people in the stomach was not as fatal as it was made out to be. Painful, sure but _fatal_?

 

“C-can we keep walking?” Evan’s voice was a mini reality check. It snapped Connor back to the present within seconds. He blinked and slid his hands into his pocket. Fingers brushing across the bloodied pocket knife that had gotten him into a scary amount of trouble. The blade should have been longer. His precision would have proved to be flawless. 

 

Connor looked down at Evan, once again weighing his options. He shrugged, “lead the way.” It would be easier to get him with his back turned. 

 

At least then if he missed the g-spot of the circulatory system he could still go for the spinal cord. Or neck, that would be a first but there’s a first time for everything. So they say.

 

Pros, it wasn’t like he would be caught. They portal bounced into a rich neck of the woods that barely anyone would think to visit. Way too far out for authorities to consider even looking. 

Pros, Evan’s phone was broken and he had no idea where they were. Unlike Connor who knew every hill, rock and tree. They couldn’t be tracked because both of their phones were in shambles.    

Even though Connor’s blood was all over the scene he had the murder weapon. There was such a large amount of it anyway, they’d have to assume he was dead.

Pros, Evan would never see it coming. If he got framed at least he would be dead. Can’t arrest a deadman.

 

 

 

“U…um, are you- well, sure? We, I don’t really have a good sense of direction.” Evan murmured out.

 

“Well, I don’t really give a fuck, Acorn. Just go that way.” Connor used his free hand, the one that wasn’t gripping his trusted pocket knife, to point in a promising direction. 

 

He was certain a few miles past the trees and shallow river there was a lovely elderly couple. They had a little two story, worn down house that had a pleasantly unkept garden. The only thing keeping them alive was their granddaughter who visited every two months or so. What was her name, _Amy? Anna? Ally?_ That and the adorable watch dog Connor offered to take for walks in his spare time.

 

 

“O-okay…” Evan hesitantly began in the that general direction. Connor followed closely behind as to not alert any suspicion. Silence accompanied their movement. Neither of the two spoke. A faint tension was creeping in, which was bad. Connor could already tell Evan was in no way comfortable with him at his rear. Whatever the reason might be. It would help if he wasn’t on edge.

 

Connor needed to fix that. “So, twenty questions?”

 

Evan visibly perked up, he glanced over his shoulder. Expression inquisitive. “I thought you said you didn’t want to play twenty questions.”

 

“You must’ve been hearing things, Acorn.” Connor clicked his tongue. Right about now he was really hoping Evan wouldn’t put up a fight. He was dragging the conversation out, making it longer than necessary. 

 

“Nonono, I specifically recall asking you if you wanted to play. Then you replied: ‘ _hell_ no.’” Evan mimicked the exact tone he had used to Connor’s dismay. To be fair it wasn’t that long ago. Maybe thirty, less than minutes. Awkward silences included.

 

“Okay well, I lied. Let's play now.” He said a bit too quickly. Evan either overlooked it or didn’t have the courage to question it. At least he knew his place.

 

“Well, um. F-favorite color?” Evan’s stutter was unreasonably adorable. Even so Connor could feel himself regretting this decision. Twenty questions to ease the tension? It would take less than twenty seconds to stab and cripple him.

 

“You’re wasting twenty questions that I have to answer honestly on a fucking color?” 

“J-just answer the question, please!” Evan insisted so Connor acquiesced. 

 

“Its pink, Acorn. Or blue.” He answered honestly. He liked the dark shade of cobalt that would on occasion grace the starless night skies. It was enchanting for no reason in particular. Pink was a gentle color, he liked it too. But there was an extent. A line. Usually he drew it at hot pink and above.

 

“Would you ever wear it?” Evan inquires.

 

“Is that a question or—” Connor began.

 

“Entirely optional.”

 

Would he ever wear pink? Connor scoffed at the idea. He would look ridiculous. The same went for such a dark shade of blue. The only clothes he was comfortable with wearing were black. Sometimes gray or brown but only sometimes.

 

“How old are you?” Connor asked. Not that it would get in the way of is intentions but he was curious. How many years was he going to be snatching away from Evan?

 

“Fifteen, you?” Fifteen years. Wasted. He fell a little behind Evan in walking speed.

 

Connor pulled the handle of the knife from his pocket. “Is that entirely optional too?”

 

Evan shook his head. “Its a question.” He was unaware, great. great. Connor could totally do this. He adjusted his grip on the knife so that its serrated edge was pointed outwardly. 

 

“Seventeen.” He answered. He was being honest but Evan turned around like he couldn’t believe that truth. One quick movement and the knife was out of his sight. 

“I just turned recently.” Connor explained. Hoping the way his voice wavered wasn’t caught by Evan.

 

 

...silence. They had stopped walking.

 

 

 

“D-do you wanna take the lead now?” His stomach twisted, whether it was caused of anger or anxiety Connor didn’t care. Evan had turned to face him. He could see the fear in his eyes, for once. All his brain could focus on was the fact that Evan definitely saw the knife. And if he hadn’t he would see it. Even as he tried to maneuver the knife into his back pocket and adjust his shirt to conceal it.

 

“Why?” He answered the question with another question.

 

 

“You seem nervous.” 

 

“And you seem delusional, just keep walking.” Connor snapped, Evan stared.

 

“I, um…” He could see the way his hands trembled. Evan was on to him, “c-could we…” there was color in his cheeks.

 

“Just spit it out, Acorn. We don’t have all day it’ll rain sooner or later.” According to the weather forecast, apparently. A thunderstorm.

 

Evan audibly swallowed. “C-can we hold hands?”

 

Oh yeah, he had _definitely_ seen the knife.

 

Connor shifted. Uncomfortable. If he said no there was no way he could regain the blind trust Evan had previously given him. If he said yes, he was stuck. End of story, no way around it. 

 

“Um…okay, what’s next are you going to take me out to dinner?” Connor took his hand and played off his intentions well. Or well enough since Evan immediately relaxed. 

 

His palms were sweating and kind of gross. But on the flip side Connor’s was covered in dry and fresh blood. So who was he to complain? Plus it would be good for him to focus his grip on something. He was starting to lose feeling in them from the blood-loss. 

 

This was okay. It wasn’t going to kill him to hold another guy’s hand.

 

They began to walk, “was that a question?” Evan asks in this quiet voice. As if he weren’t sure whether or not he should ask. That was kind of cute. 

 

He moved through his fear and placed Connor on the spot. Might have saved his own life in his process. How could he kill someone like that? Good instincts, quick thinking but his stress response could use work. All in all…Evan might make a good accomplice. If he was okay with stabbing people and or watching people get stabbed.

 

It was already obvious that he wasn’t afraid of blood. Which was, interesting. Seeing as despite it he managed to get aroused. That or because of it. Connor resisted to laugh. He might have just earned himself a new playmate. A complete freak at that.

 

“Was what a question?” Connor glanced down at him. Evan’s gaze was on the ground. His face cherry red. 

 

“T-the, um…that thing about dinner? B-because I would…” If it weren’t for the fact that the forest was quiet, Connor wouldn’t have heard him. 

 

A lightning bug caught his eye. Then a few more. Their tiny little lights making him more aware of how late it was getting. The sun was already going down but there was still a bit of light left. At least enough for them to be able to see.

 

“I was joking. Besides, aren’t you a little young? Are you even old enough to have a driver’s license?” Connor replies. He chokes down the amusement in his voice. It wasn’t like he was too old for Evan, but him trying to take the initiative like that. Funny. Real funny.

 

“Cars give off heavy amounts of carbon dioxide. They’re harmful to the environment and a major cause for g-global warming. It wouldn’t kill you to walk somewhere, right?”

 

“Okay, okay Earth-nerd. Lets wait until I don’t look like I just walked into a paper shredder, hm?”

 

“Oh..okay.” 

 

 

 

The silence between them was more comforting than it was awkward. It felt needed. Like without it they would have talked their entire lives away and with it they could just breathe. Giving space to new opportunities. They could always pick up the conversation some other day. That was a pleasant thought. Seeing each other again after today.

 

Connor was walking slightly ahead of Evan just out of habit. He knew exactly where they were headed. Since killing him was now out of the question. Especially when the small river bank was coming into view. The elderly couple like to walk along it. If they saw a dead body it would probably ruin the rest of their lives. If he was lucky they would still be awake. Spending the night at their cozy home was in their best interest.

 

The sound of dragonflies buzzing in the dark. Floating above the quiet ripples of the rushing river flow. How the water splashed against the stone beds of the river’s exterior. It was dark, the bottom of the clear water was nothing but an abyss. Like black ink had just been poured into the mixture of running water, turning it dark blue. It was too shallow to drown in but could be intimidating to those who didn't know that.

 

Evan tugged on his hand, “do you hear a dog?”

 

Connor paused to listen. Looking around for the familiar Rottweiler. They weren’t close enough to the house. It wasn’t anywhere in sight as far as they both could tell.

 

“No—?” He was about to say but was cut off by the faint sound. Too distinct to ignore. 

 

“Please, tell me you heard that.” Evan said as Connor began to lead him across the river. His boots were soaked now but that was the least of his concerns. Evan followed more reluctantly.

 

“Can you whistle?” Again, question with a question. 

 

“Yeah, a little. Why?” Evan asks.

 

“Just follow my lead.” Connor said. He began to whistle an abstract tune. After a few moments Evan managed to mimic it. Making a few mistakes here and there…A full minute filled with the sound of them whistling in a rough harmony ensued. Then they were met with the accompaniment of a heartfelt howl. Faintly in the distance Connor picked up on the sound of Bud’s large paws stomping the ground.

 

“W-wait!” Evan's whistle died in his throat, eyes widening. Clearly he hadn’t expected them to be beckoning the dog. 

 

“What?” Connor spared him a glance as he spotted the large figure come running past a line of trees. Dirt and broken leaves being plowed out of the way as she trucked towards them. 

 

“Its fine, Ev— Acorn. They’re friendly.” Connor tried to reassure him but Evan’s grip on his hand only loosened. He would actually be torn apart by that dog if he decided to start running. Bud had a way of asserting her hatred for runners through well placed bites. Connor had speculated she was used in a police force or something. She usually went for the wrists or arms to tug his victim’s to the ground. Then the neck. Connor knew this from experience.

 

“Don’t, Evan stay still.” He grabbed Evan’s wrist before the shorter could tear himself away. This could go south really quick if they didn’t stand their ground. He should have guessed Evan wasn’t too much of a dog person. That or the sight of a muscular Rottweiler making a beeline fore him just wasn’t a very calming one.

 

Bud leaped onto his chest, dragging Connor down to the ground. Evan fell too. Being harshly pulled into the crossfire of licks and dog kisses that Connor was being subjected to. 

 

“Ack- down girl, relax! You’re going to scare Acorn.” Connor couldn’t hide his smile. He used his free hand to run his fingers through the thin fur around Bud’s head. Their brown eyebrows furrowed slightly. Because of them, they looked permanently angry- kind oflike how Connor was. Which is why they got along so well. 

 

Pink tongue lolled and canines exposed Bud raked one long lick over Connor’s bloody face. Her tail was wagging so violently the air around it swished as it was being cut. He felt his chest tightened. Evan’s hand slipped from his.

 

“Alright. Bud. Sit.” Connor’s voice grew more demanding. Recognizing the tone immediately Bud backed down and let him sit up. She sat down, tail wiping around behind her. Her head tilted to an angle as she watched Connor’s face contort with concern.

 

“Shit…Acorn?” Evan was still. Scarily so. His paled face devoid of its usual scared or flustered emotion. 

 

“Evan, hey…” Connor placed a hand on his shoulder, shaking him lightly. Hoping to coax him into opening his eyes via movement. He didn’t. Connor’s concern grew. Bud let out a small whine. She could sense his distress. For a few moments she just watched him check for a pulse and any major wounds. Following the orders that she had been given. Up until her gaze caught fresh blood.

 

Bud stood up and slipped over to Evan. Licking the wound on the side of his head that Connor had obviously missed.

 

Much to Connor’s consternation, more blood began to flow down. Without the ground to apply pressure to it.

 

“Fucking. Hell.” Connor hissed beneath his breath and ran his fingers through his hair. Then took a reassuring breath and lifted Evan from the ground. Despite his height he was heavier than anticipated. With some difficulty and Bud’s help he managed to somehow pick him up. One arm supporting his neck and the other his legs. He let out a pained huff. 

 

“Go on a damn diet.” He mumbles then turns his gaze towards Bud. She met his gaze with curiosity. Unfamiliar with Evan but trusting with Connor. “Alright, Bud—lets go home shall we?”

Bud barked out a reply and whirled around, prepared to take the lead. So they began to walk...

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :3


	5. You Don't Know Me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little snippit just in case i slack off on the next one.
> 
> Leave a comment? I respond to them all :3

When Evan woke it was to a violent clap of thunder. The loud sound echoed off the walls of the dimly lit room he found himself in. The rain drops rhythmically tapped against a nearby window. His attention was drawn over to it. Its frame looked old and worn from many days being opened and shut. Bits of dirt and cobwebs suggested a potted plant had been there once.

 

The glass had long been coaxed in a layer of fog so thick it appeared to be translucent. Evan’s dreary, umber brown eyes fixated on the raindrops as they would bullet into the window, destroying the fog veil. The impact emitting a quiet tap, joined by a chorus of others raging their futile attacks. 

 

Illuminated by thick, vanilla scented candles, the room’s dull lighting felt complementary to the rain and the tranquil vibe that radiated from it. Evan subconsciously grew more comfortable, content even, as the vanilla aroma began to hit his nose. Mixed with the homely scent of butterscotch that clung to the sheets draped over his body.

 

The sound of the rain still echoing within his ears like a catchy song. He sank further into the worn out pillows and sighed. His gaze drifted over the room he had woken up in. Swallowing down every small detail it had to offer.

 

The room itself was quite large, bigger than the one he had at home. The walls were made of a Lyptus or Teak wood. Within the dark he couldn’t differentiate the two. To his right there was a long line of polished oakwood bookcases that held rows upon rows offiles. There was the occasional book, always baring a hard cover. A few had conspicuous looking strands poking past their pages. Most likely being used as markers. 

 

They looked as if they had gone untouched for a while. Dust was beginning to coat the exterior of many. 

 

Closer to Evan’s right there was a nightstand where the plate of candles were located. Long strands of white trickled down the four wax sticks. Their fires burned brightly enough to light most of the room. The scent they emanated reminding him of the perfume his mother used to wear. She stopped when he had complained that it always made him hungry for ice cream. Still, it reminded him of her, home and forced a smile onto his features.

 

A bright flash of white coated the room for a half a second. A few moments later the boom of thunder followed it and the rain picked up. It sounded like it was hitting the ground hard enough to make indentions in the soil. Despite being in an unfamiliar place he much rather be here than out in the rain.

 

Evan pulled the floral flaxen-beige colored duvets away and slung his feet over the edge of the bed. Hesitant to test how much more his already sore ankles could take he slowly lowered himself onto the cool wooden surface. A shiver buzzed through his body. A soft breeze littering his arms with goosebumps as he turned to remake the bed. It was only fair to whoever must have taken him there.

 

His mind snapped to Connor.

 

A mixture of well balanced fear and excitement churned within his stomach.

 

He felt like he was going to have a heart attack when he saw Connor swipe the knife behind his back. His stomach was in his chest and his heart was in the place where his stomach should have been. It was the most mild fear he had felt in years and thats what scared him the most.

 

The fact that he was only a little scared. It may have been due to the fact that entire walk there he had been expecting it. To be suddenly attacked and end up with his body parts and organs on the black market. That was definitely what would have happened if he had not suggested they held hands. But it never hurt to ask. Just to be sure and all.

 

Evan doubted he had the mental strength though. He lacked the confidence. Connor would just deny even having a knife and jot it down to the fact that he had passed out. What what happened in that time? _Was he dragged to the ground? Did the dog push him? Did Connor push him?_ The memory was fuzzier than a wooly bear but Evan was certain he had seen the blade of a knife.

 

Ever since a traumatic trip to the doctor he had been scarred with a distrust in people with their hands behind their backs. His child mind had saw it coming half a mile away. Even without his power he probably would have been able to tell he was getting a needle.

 

Evan wasn’t a fan of needles. Or pain for that matter. He could certainly do without either in his life. Between emotional and physical pain…well that was a different story. 

 

 

He slowly made his way towards the door located on the other side of the room. Because of the bedpost he hadn’t noticed the off white carpet settled in front of it. He maneuvered his way around circular rug and reached for the door knob.

 

The moment his hands clasped around the knob a flicker of light shifted from beyond the door. He could hear scurrying. Like something was scratching the wooden floor boards. Evan paused for a hot minute and contemplated just getting back into bed but fought against it. That took time. Deciding it was better to face the dangers that could be waiting for him on the other side of the door.

 

This could all be one ginormous trap to get him comfortable enough. Then, out of nowhere. Surprise! Internal organs are meeting the light of day. _Congratulations fool, you played yourself._

 

Why had he even agreed to jump through a random rip in the floor with a stranger covered head to toe in their own blood? What in the actual hell was wrong with him?

 

The door creaked louder than Evan was comfortable with, the amount of light that shone through momentarily blinded him. He winced and narrowed his eyes as they tried to adjust to it.

 

As things came into focus he noticed four pairs of eyes simultaneously land on him. One from the large black and tan dog that bore its beady black eyes into his very soul. The other from a man, newspaper in hand. Age had hounded his wrinkly features. Hair thin, salted and gray but curly. 

 

Evan had to note he was wearing big round glasses with black rims that made his eyes look comically large. He could have giggled if it weren’t for how self conscious the attention was making him. A tooth pick perched precariously between the man’svisibly chapped lips. Old eyes dark and speculating. He glanced up and back down. Becoming engrossed in whatever he was reading in the newspaper article. 

 

Another pair, from behind a well polished countertop that reminded Evan of the book shelf. It was a deep shade of walnut brown rimmed with gold engravings along its edges. An elderly woman with shoulder long, graying hair smiled at him. It was warm and welcoming. She was wearing a heather-lavender colored gown. It complimented her dark skin well. Around her neck was a silver locket. It probably held precious memories. It dangled as she wiped away the nonexistent dust from the spotless countertop. 

 

The last pair, Connor’s. They were sympathetic and relaxed. For what might have ben the first time he caught a glimpse of a sincere smile on his face. Expression no longer tense of filled with irritation. He was sat on a comfortable looking stool, it had long dark rust colored legs and a burgundy purple cushion. Oddly, the colors correlated well with one another and the countertop. Besides Connor was a clean white mug. Whip cream and sprinkles visible from where Evan stood. 

 

With a candy cane in hand, Connor gestured for Evan to come closer and not just stand in the doorway admiring the rest of the cozy, wooden home. Evan did so. He tried not to make eye contact with the dog that followed behind like a…like a dog would. It was just a dog doing dog things and he felt terrified. For no reason.

 

“Sugar, sweetheart. Are your pants made of metal? Quit shuffling and have a seat.” The elderly woman joked, ushering him to sit in one of the stools. Evan awkwardly took the nearest one which was one stool down from Connor’s.

 

Connor grabbed his mug and slid over to the seat, eliminating the gap Evan wanted between them. He smiled, Evan couldn’t help but to smile back.

 

Connor’s freehand, specifically the one that wasn’t holding a half eaten candy cane, was on his knee now. Evan wished he wouldn’t do that but didn’t say anything. The way he tensed up must have given away his discomfort because Connor pulled away.

 

“You alright, Acorn?” 

 

“Why call me that when you already know my name?” Evan glared coldly. He had act mean and upset. That was what his mother always told him. When someone did something that was downright unacceptable he had to insure they knew what they did was wrong. An apology was in order. Otherwise Connor would fuck around and do it again. Next time he might not get so lucky.

 

“Sheesh, _Evan_. Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?” Connor corrected himself. Evan’s heart was on the verge of melting. He took a breath and willed it to stay in one piece because even though it was pretty useless he still needed his heart.

 

“Y-you know something I don’t.” Evan pressed on but the force in his voice had wavered considerably. His statement came out more like a question. This was not going his way. It was clear Evan didn’t want to be upset.

 

“Do you want a hot chocolate? Ms. Beck, I think Evan needs a hot coco.” Connor avoided the question-statement. The elderly woman smiled and nodded. Not bothering to ask Evan for conformation on this order he had not asked for. She turned around and made her way towards the pantry. 

 

Evan didn’t dare let his eyes leave Connor who seemed reluctant to further their conversation. His brows knitting when Connor refused to pay him any mind and continued to idly draw his tongue over the candy cane. It was losing its distinct red stripes.

 

“Connor.” Evan seethed in a hushed tone. Not wanting to draw the woman’s attention. She was grabbing him a blue mug and filling it with milk.

 

“Acorn?”

 

Evan glared.

 

Connor corrected himself again, “Evan.” His smile had faded.

 

His blue eyes looked burdened with something. Like he was holding back or suppressing something that was difficult to keep contained. And had his eyes always been blue or was that just another lie to add to the spiral of them all?

 

“What am I missing here? What don’t I know?” Evan could hear the agitation growing in his own voice.

 

“Here you are, if you want any toppings just ask.” The elderly woman sat a mug of steaming hot chocolate before him. That was surprisingly quick. He thanked her then turned his attention right back to Connor who looked bemused.

 

“For starters, you don’t know me. Or them. So don’t act like you do.” There was that anger. In his voice, this deep fury seemed to be building and a part of Evan was hesitant to push it further. Continuing his query would only be as helpful as fanning the flames. Or better yet, just dumping a whole gallon of gasoline down on it.

 

Evan shook his head. “I’m not.”

 

“Yes, you fucking are.” Connor snapped, his tone grew more hushed as he cursed.

 

“What, no, how so?” 

 

“Holding hands, asking me out on dates? What the fuck do you even think you’re getting in to?” 

 

Evan blinked in shock, he clenched his teeth. “I-i only held your hand because I was scared you’d _stab me_. Yeah. I saw the knife.” Connor’s expression washed over with guilt. “A-and I humored your d-date joke because I was trying t-to be polite.”

 

“Fuck, if I knew you were going to be difficult I would have just stabbed you.” Connor turned away from Evan and ran his hands over his face. Somehow, only now had Evan realized that his wounds were gone. There were pink marks scarring up his skin but the blood had ceased, the wounds had closed.

 

“Being difficult? I’m not being difficult, Connor. I think I have a right to know something.” Evan replied with a sharp tone.

 

“I think you gave up your **fucking** _(at this point Connor had slammed his hands down in the counter top, causing the mugs to wobble and Evan to flinch)_ **right** to know anything when you decided to follow me through that portal.”

 

“Murphy!” The woman shrilled.

 

_Murphy?! No no, that had to be a coincidence…_

 

“You know we don’t use that kind of language in this house hold.” The elderly woman snapped at him, a hand cupping her hip. Her gaze was boring holes into Connor’s, he visibly shrank back.

 

“Yes I know but-” Connor began.

She cut him off. “No buts! Anything after but is a bunch of bull. Now apologize to this young man because you may not be able to tell right now but I can see it in your auras. You two were made for each other. And one day you're going to really need him. You hear?” 

 

Evan blinked, a little taken back by the woman’s words. Was Conner an actual Murphy? Like the same Murphy as Zoe Murphy? As in his crushes’ older brother? He wasn’t even aware Zoe had an older brother. And what did she mean 'they where meant for each other?' He didn't want to get stuck with Connor! Not matter how hot he was that didn't excuse his harsh personality. Evan didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve to be strapped to a grenade that was at all times, five seconds away from detonating.

This was crazy. No. This was actually insane.

 

 What. The. Hell? 


	6. You're The Worst Start To The Best End.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> something so great never looked so bad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This STILL is a short one! :'D
> 
> I edited it a bit, different outcome so  
> its easier to progress
> 
> \+ More edits made

 

“Like as in soulmates, made for each other?” Instead of an apology, Connor sat a little taller. His tone was dripping with a ripe sarcasm. Evan couldn’t complain. He would have asked the same thing if his mind weren’t so preoccupied with trying to piece together the quickest pathway out of this mess. 

 

There was no way. Connor being a Murphy thrown to the side lines, it could wait its turn. What couldn’t wait was his escape plan. The nearest exit was the old window in the room with the vanilla scented candles. Those candles smelt really good. Not the point…

 

If he made a bee line for it now—there wasn’t a lock on the door. But it would not take long to open a window and bolt. Wait, then there’s the rain and the whole forest thing. Which Connor lied about, or did he? Had he ever even said whether or not he knew their location?

 

He knew this house was here. He seemed to know the dog and the people within the home pretty well too. _Well, thats it. Nice knowing you life._ Evan was definitely going to die here. There was probably poison in the hot cocoa. They’d use it to knock him out and then they would rip open his insides and sell them. Or eat them. Cannibals? Would they feed his feet to the dog and use his fingers to stir tea? Did that only happen in movies? Not like, theater movie but the fucked up kind of movies you only find through several days of internet research. 

 

 

“Soulmates died out decades ago.” The woman said as she swiped up Evan’s mug and took a long sip. That was alright. That was fine. It wasn’t like he was going to drink it anyway. Not with his whole poison theory heavy in mind. The disappointment still stung. Evan mentally chided himself for missing out on a perfectly good glass of hot cocoa.

 

But then again the woman could just be immune to the poison inside it. By drinking it she was just trying to get Evan to lower his guard. Then out of nowhere she would apologize and offer him another cup, which he would drink under the idea that it was safe. And then…

 

 

“So we’re not made for each other.” Connor seemed to have completely slipped out of apologizing. Like a snake he slithered his way around it by changing the subject to something so relevant that it didn’t feel like the subject had shifted. 

 

Evan knew how to spot those shifts. He did it all the time with his mother, on the rare chance that he even got to talk with her. Sad, he knew.

 

Connor wasn’t slick. Evan could see straight through what he was playing at. New question to add to the many. Why? Why not apologize?

 

“Hun, you know I like to exaggerate the truth sometimes.” The elderly woman gently rocked her hand back and forth. The hot chocolate stirred as she did so, coffee brown liquid looping in an almost methodical manner. When a droplet or two spilled over the edge of the blue mug she halted.

 

“I’m just asking what you were trying to imply by saying he’s meant for me.” Connor said. 

 

Evan could not, for the life of him, place the tone he was using. All he knew was he didn’t like it one bit. It felt too modest. For Connor’s standards at least. He wasn’t snapping at her or demanding anything. And at the same time he was. Connor’s voice carried a sense of unwavering confidence. Suggesting that he had something to dangle over the woman’s head. He had the higher ground. 

 

“He’s a strong, young man. He’ll be more,” a pause, “durable then the last one.” The woman nodded as she spoke. Hesitant. Choosing each word with precision. There was something she was trying to hide.

 

“Wait, wait— the last one?” Evan knew it was rude to intrude but he keeping quiet was out of the question. The word _‘durable’_ was what threw him off the most. He of all people, durable? That was funny. Nice joke, shows over. You can’t beat the hilarity of that one. Don’t even try. Its not possible.

 

What was truly concerning was the fact that the woman had said: _more durable_. That changed things. That changed everything, actually. To think that there was someone in the world that would shatter faster than he did. Phenomenal! It had to be an infant. A baby not a toddler because most toddlers didn’t care what others thought of them. 

 

“Its none of your concern, Acorn. Just shut up and look cute.” Connor waved his hand dismissively while the woman took a long sip from the cocoa and avoided his gaze. 

 

Bad signs. Red Flags. Everywhere.

 

 

 

Evan shook his head. “N-no, I think it is.”

 

“Well, maybe you should think it over.” Connor flashed a pejorative smile in response.

 

“What’s there to think over? I know I’m missing something and you guys are taking advantage of that—” Evan was cut off.

 

“Let me stop you right there.” Connor took another sip of his hot chocolate before continuing. “I don’t feel like holding another conversation with your nosy ass so let me put this in a way that your tiny brain can understand. If you keep asking questions I will insult you.”

 

Evan stared. What did Connor mean ‘I will insult you.’ He was already insulting him! Acting like he didn’t exist, randomly snapping at him, calling him rude names. The list went on. What, was there another level of insulation? Some hidden boss Evan was aware of? He had gotten this far. Surely he could take it.

 

With Evan’s confusion being so blatant, Connor felt obligated to explain further. He downed the rest of his hot chocolate and licked the cream that pasted his lips. 

 

Then.

 

Then he turned to Evan and stared him directly in the eyes with such a blank stare. One that wedged his breath within his throat. He never stood a chance. So much for being able to see into the near future. Nothing in his body was prepared for what was coming at him. His sixth sense had gone quiet. There was no warning. Evan could feel his lungs constricting, his heart beat grew irregular. It was boiling, gurgling as if someone physically grabbed a hold of it and began to squeeze the movement out. Any shred of his confidence vanished, composure completely diminished. Glaring down at him was something that could not be defined as human. No living creature should’ve ever been capable of giving off a vibe so _dead_. In those chilled blue eyes he saw nothing but a hollow shell, a decomposing corpse wearing the flesh of a breathing body. His blood curdled until he felt colder than ice. Evan couldn’t even shake, he was just. Frozen.

 

 

 

“What I mean is, I’m going to hound out every little thing that you like about yourself. I’m going to take anything and everything you love and fucking break it. Once its crushed beyond recognition I’ll mold it into one big mass and grind it so deep into your skin that eventually you will want to claw it all off. But wait, it doesn’t stop there. Those little things will begin to infect and bite away at your brain. They’ll taint your conscience until the only thing its good for is telling you how fucking pathetic you— Fucking hell, Acorn.” Connor drew his hands over his face, grumbling as his intimidation speech hat been cut short. 

 

Evan passed out, a near motionless lump on the rusty colored hardwood floors. They creaked beneath his weight. A sorrowful sound that was soon joined by a roar of thunder. Bud popped her head around the corner to investigate the noise. Her eyes looked down to Evan and she let out an audible huff through her speckled black nose. Expressing the same amount of indifference as Connor had. If she could roll her eyes she probably would have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a dreadful while of silence the elderly woman brought a balled hand to her lips and coughed into it. “Murphy, what were you even expecting to happen?” She inquired, bored with the routine.

 

Connor shrugged and glanced down at his mug. Disappointed to find nothing left, he spoke. “You were the one who said he was more durable.” 

 

“I meant mentally.” The woman groans out.

 

“It doesn’t help that you didn’t specify. Oh, and refill this.” Connor slid the cup across the countertop, the elderly woman huffed and slid it back to him.

 

“Do I look like your personal servant?” She snapped.

 

“No,” He rolls his eyes and bites back a scoff, “and I say this is nicest way possible. But last time I checked i’m not the one the one five hundred thousand dollars in dept.”

 

“How dare you?!”

“Don’t make me repeat myself, Ms. Beck. Stay true to our deal and don’t test my nerves.” Connor glanced down at Evan, contemplating whether or not he should bother picking him up.

 

He had already taken Evan to bed once and he was dead-set on doing it again if it meant he got something in return. Only if he got something in return. But he _wouldn’t_ because Evan was unconscious. Which was unfortunate. Since that didn’t necessarily mean he _couldn’t_ get something in return. 

Jesus  _christ_ , what the hell was wrong with him?

 

Mrs. Beck snatched up the mug and went to refill it. Grumbling incoherent insults beneath her breath as she moved around her tidy space of a kitchen. Connor was drifting off into his own, probably perverted, thoughts. The man glued to his newspaper magazine looked up for half a second. The house phone vibrated from its spot on a small lamp table near the arm of the man’s rocking chair. Grunting, he reached for it.

 

 

 

“Do you think I could get away with giving him a bath or is that too far for the first day?” Connor murmured more to himself than anyone else.

 

Mrs. Beck slammed the cupboards shut to gather his attention. It did. His gaze drifted up towards her but he didn’t meet her eyes. Instead, awkwardly, he focused his attention on the mug in her wrinkled and veiny hands. Her long nails were painted a glittery silver, on her ring finger they were lavender. It went well with the night gown she had came accustomed to wearing.

 

“That boy is no dog, Connor. You’ll scar him for life.” Her tone bordered exasperated. "What were you thinking, bringing him all the way out here? What were you on?"

 Connor offered up a half-hearted shrug in response to her inquiry. Mrs. Beck sighs once more.

"You aren't even trying anymore, huh?" Her tone is sour, unsurprised and disappointed. It shares a scary resemblance to someone he wishes he didn't remember. 

Connor shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about." His gaze falls further and lands nowhere in particular.

"Are you high?"

"No." His answer is too quick, too systematic. He shakes his head. Unbelievable. He's said it before about a dozen times and he's lied about it about a dozen times more. Somehow it never gets any easier. It never sounds the slightest bit true, either.

"Murphy." She tries again, sternly.

"No!" Connor snapped.

 

There wasn't any point in trying to get a clean answer from him. They both new it. They'd been down this road far too many, uncountable times. So, with sagging shoulders Mrs. Beck kindly gives up.  “If you weren’t paying I’d be done with your shenanigans. How do your parents do it?”

 

Connor felt the ghost of a smile itching at the corners of his lips. “They _don’t_.” 

 

The soft ‘oh’ that fell from her pinkish-Burgundy lips was priceless.

 

Connor had no problem with being pitied. He found it hilarious that people could be so forgiving. Thinking that someone out there would be stupid enough to feel sorry for him. It made him smile. Those were the kind of people that put cash in his wallet.

 

“He’ll probably be dazed when he wakes up so I think I can get away with it.” Connor turned his attention back to Evan, giving a curt nod.

 

“What if he’s not?” The woman countered.

 

“Does it really matter? I could just do it again.” Pushing himself off of the stool, Connor made his way around Evan and over to Bud. He beckoned the muscular dog with a curt whistle and had her stand besides Evan, so she could help him lift.

 

“You’d turn his brains into mush.” 

 

“I’d be doing him a favor.” He slid his arm beneath Evan’s neck and lifted until he was sat upright. Bud managed to maneuver her way beneath his slender legs which would make it easier for Connor to lift him.

 

“Con Man. Phone’s from one of your boys.” The elderly man wheezed in his low, graveled voice. His shaky hands extended to hand Connor the rectangular house phone.

 

Connor resisted to glare the man into the grave as he accepted the phone. Con Man was a running joke, the man would never let him live it down, would he? With much difficulty he managed to wedge it between his ear and shoulder.

 

 

 

 

“Chocolate sprinkles on vanilla ice cream, dumb shits.” Connor greeted the voice on the other line with a monotone mumble. With Evan in his arms and the phone besides his ear he made his way over to the vanilla scented room.

 

He paused to hear them out. “Okay, yeah. I know.” Connor turned around and pressed his back up against the door. He looked to Mrs. Beck and motioned, somehow, for her to assist him. Which she quickly made a move to do as he continued his conversation with the man on the other line.

 

“Well who the fuck did she say she was looking for?” Another pause, “and you said her name was Heidi? Looking for an Evan, correct?”

 

Mrs. Beck opened the door and allowed Connor to slip into the room. He kicked the door shut the moment he got the chance to. Promptly slamming it in her face. It rattled on its hinges for a moment. The old wooden outlining of it chipping. Splinters of wood clattered to the ground. Each click bringing a new reason why she put up with Connor. So long as he kept up his end of the deal they would be out of debt in two or three more years. They could wait that long.

 

 

 

“For Alana, dear.” The elderly man shuffled close. His hand resting on her shoulder. She leaned into his touch and let out another sigh. This one being twice as dragged out as the last. 

 

“For Alana.” She agreed.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :"T


	7. A Day With Jared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A double back into the first chapter!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Straight Crushing.

 

“ _Soooo_!” Jared piped in to kill the silence growing between them. Killing the silence, make conversation with the weirdo. 

Evan was never they type to openly express his opinion. He didn’t like to take the initiative or lead role. He was always riding passenger side, along for the ride. At complete will of the driver. Submissive, It was one of the few things that Jared actually liked about Evan. Whenever he was around the taller he could tap into a sense of superiority that he found nowhere else. It was a true confidence booster.

 

 

“What’s today’s rating?” He nudged Evan with his elbow. Gloved hands tucked away in his coat pockets. He could barley feel his finger tips as the early September weather began to take its toll, even with the gray cotton fabric to shield them. 

 

Jared scrunched up his nose to try and push his glasses back to the bridge. To no avail obviously. Using his hands was out of the question as they would lose the warmth they had been accumulating. There was nothing worst than starting over. Especially when he would need to use his hands to write down all the stupid information the new teachers would try and cram down his throat. 

 

The occasional dull sensation that chilled his nose acted as a reminder that the faster they got to school, the warmer it would be. Holding back the tingly urge to sneeze, Jared sniffled and fought back a frown. Bitter memories of the past trying to claw their way up to the surface of his mind. His nose was red.

 

Due to the rim of his glasses his nose would pop into his peripheral vision whenever he got sidetracked. It was a bother. And a reality check. One he would have to live with until his dad agreed to get him a new, rimless pair.

 

His gaze fixated on Evan as he waited for a response and tried to ignore the distant memory of being teased for looking like Rudolph. His mother made him dress up like a reindeer to humor his classmates. A sticking nick name was formed. One that Jared much rather push to the deep, dark depths of his mind.

 

 

 

Evan looked…distraught. He had for the past week or so. At random he would zone out or start shaking. For the past two days the white in his eyes appeared misty and the dim light in his bubbly demeanor was fading. Faint but nasty ebony circles had begun to make their homes beneath his brown eyes.

 

Jared never had the strength to ask him if something was up. Sappy and soft topics were never his strong suit. If he saw tears he couldn’t function properly. His brain went as blank as the beginning of every essay. 

 

Evan looked around as if everything was alright. As if he weren’t clearly losing sleep. “I have,” he paused,“wait- hold on…Let me sit…”

 

Jared watched as Evan walked over to the old and worn bench. He sat down and leaned back against the head rest. The bench groaned in protest, showing off its age with the faint sound of splintering wood. Jared continued to stand. He didn’t trust the strength of the bench, not one bit.

 

His foot shifted against the graveled pavement as he waited for Evan to do his little thing and give a summary of how awesome the day would be. Once, in elementary, because elementary is the grade where everything is awesome. Evan raced over to his house and jumped on his bed until he woke up. He was completely ecstatic, saying that that day would be the best day ever.

 

And it was.

 

They found ten dollars on the ground and got to see a blue butterfly. Not only that, during snack time Zoe Murphy had offered to trade with Jared. A  muffin for two cookies that he really happened to like. At the end of the day an ice-cream truck stopped close to the school so Evan brought them all ice-cream with the ten dollars. 

 

To this day it hadn’t been topped.

 

Jared smiled at the fond memory. Evan smiled too. His past the only thing that could make him do that, genuinely. Now and days things were a lot more dull. Jared didn't know how to make him smile anymore. It was so much easier back when they were little.

 

“Good day then?” Noticing his smile, Jared chimes. Looking a bit hopeful. To his dismay Evan shook his head and shushes him. 

 

Their smiles fade. Evan clasps his hands together in hopes to warm them. Or to stop them from trembling. Jared couldn’t tell. Nor did he ask.

 

His brown eyes fell shut as he tried actually to center his focus.

 

 

 

 

 

When Evan blinked away the remains of his vision he was shaking violently. This happened far too often. His hands were still locked together. He pressed his forehead against them and breathed.

 

“Evan?” Jared’s worried voice snatched his attention way from the ground. “Dude, you’re shaking worst than a slut in December. If today’s that bad we can just not go.” He had to force down every urge in his body that was telling him to comfort Evan. To take him into a warm embrace and tell him that they could head out to the coffee shop they both really liked.

 

 

“I promised my mom I’d go today.” Evan replied to which Jared could not help but to be skeptical.

 

“There’s literally _always_ a tomorrow.” He says and shakes his head when Evan stumbles over thin air. 

 

“Easy for you to say,” he leaned against the old bench. It creaked loudly. If he didn’t get it together Jared had no doubt that it would collapse beneath his weight. It upset him. Just a little bit. That Evan could show more trust in an old park bench than he could in Jared.

 

That thought was shoved into the corner of his mind. Evan’s words beginning to register in his head. Easy for you to say? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

 

Jared opened his mouth to ask just that but he was cut off by a hasty add on from Evan.

 

“T-there is a tomorrow! Ah, obviously…”

 

Jared sighed in relief but Evan, clearly, couldn’t share the enthusiasm. His eyes flickered upwards. They narrowed. Like he was looking at something that no one else could see. He had asked about it once. Evan didn’t grace that question with a reply. And Jared never asked again.

 

 

Evan tore his hand away from the bench and forced himself to approach and return to the cobble path. Furthering himself from the bench. Much to Jared’s relief because he didn’t want to be fined for breaking the bench. Since Evan’s mother was having financial problems his mother would offer to pay. Then that money would be deducted from his future car.

 

If that happened Jared would have to punch him. Like, really hard in the stomach. Or kick him down the stairs. Because he would have to ride the bus to school for the rest of the year. Adding onto his already wavering, negative reputation. What kind of loser didn’t have their own car at sixteen?

 

Jared pulled his phone from his pocket to distract himself, “We have, like, five minutes before homeroom.” He announced. Swiping to the left to see the weather. The news had lied. The warm night temperature from yesterday didn’t carry out into today. Instead it did the exact opposite and his mood began to sour. Bitter. 

 

He absolutely hated the rain. Nothing good ever came from the sky crying. All it ever did was make the ground wet and the dirt mushy. At school it was worst since everyone’s feet would make that high pitch squeaking sound that drove him crazy. Jared shut off his phone with a single glance and moved to return it to his back pocket.

 

Evan suddenly grabbed his coat sleeve. Tugging his arm back. “Don’t.” He warns.

 

There was a moment of quizzical silence. Tension gradually began to pollute the air around them. Like a suffocating smoke. Jared couldn’t have that but he didn’t know what to do. Or how to react. Or convince himself that he was against this. Because a tiny part of him truly did not mind this. 

 

_Evan used confusion, it was super affective on the wild Jared! Now he was fucked._

 

Evan let go of Jared’s arm and took a step back. Jared flinched for a moment. Catching himself before he could even attempt reaching out to Evan to try and bring his hand back. That was a no no. A double negative. _A stop thinking of weird gay thoughts about your childhood friend._ Sort of bad.

 

Evan muttered a barely coherent apology. That was weirder than usual for his standard weird. 

 

 

 

 

And Evan’s standard weird was. Exotic…for lack of a better word.

 

 

 

 

 

“You’re acting weird.” Jared chuckled. Nervous as he began to feel a blush creep towards his face. Which was —And he meant it it in the most sincere way possible— Not a good thing.

 

He shoves his phone into his coat pocket and tried to clear his thoughts. Focus on what was more important than the disgusting ones paddling into his mind. Hating his conscience. If his father found out he was thinking like this he would be disowned.

 

“A-am I?” Evan laughed nervously. Jared found his laugh strangely adorable. The tension thickened.

 

“I’m just- you know what.” He twisted on his heels towards the other direction. Away from the school. Away from Evan. 

 

“I’m going back home.” Jared shook his head and adjusted his glasses. He could feel Evan watching him. But didn’t hear him make a move to follow him. Which was fine. It wasn’t like he wanted Evan to walk back with him anyway…

 

 

 

…

 

 

“You’re home early.” 

 

Jared had spent the entire walk back thinking a bucket’s worth of excuses and lies. Anything to dump out and forget once the next day began. His mother didn’t have sense to take him for a compulsive liar. Quite like his father. She just wanted to believe she had someone she could trust for once.

 

When he had learned that he abused it. From sixth grade and forward nothing that he had ever told her was completely true. It was all lies and half lies. Fabricated truths filled with weasel words.

 

“Uh, heh. Yeah you too.” He said while slinging his backpack to the side. Letting it slouch against the hallway wall right besides the door.

 

“Where’s Evan?” His mother inquired while he struggled to release his feet from the captivity of his favorite pair of sneakers. They were the ones Evan said were lucky. And Evan was an honest person. But that was probably due to the fact that he was a terrible liar. Either way, his mother adored him. Jared did too— to an extent. 

 

 

**Obviously**.

 

 

 

“He promised Heidi he would go today.” Jared said, going off of Evan’s words. Rule number one of lying to somebody’s face: If you can help it. Don’t make shit up.

 

 

“Oh. Well, do you want some brownies? I made some since Heidi should be getting off her shift early.” His mother moved towards the kitchen. 

 

If the seven in the morning meant early than never must have qualified as late. 

 

 

Jared made his way over to the dining table. The smell of the aforementioned brownies hitting him in gradual waves. He hoped that the scent would flood his brain and wash away any trace of Evan. But instead it just reminded him of how much Evan hated brownies. 

 

They used to have a day dedicated to eating them, when they were younger and Heidi didn’t have to work as often. Since Heidi. Loved. Brownies. Especially the ones with nuts in them. Which even at the age of seven he couldn’t help but make an inappropriate joke about.

 

Evan didn’t catch onto it but his is dad looked more disappointed than ever.

 

Those were the days. If he could time travel, then he would have gone back and savored them. But he didn’t. And he couldn’t. So he was left with the bittersweet taste of regret that tested his composure every so often. More so on the days where he felt so shitty he would rather just disappear.

 

 

 

“That’s cool.” He said after some time. Getting seated at the chair he usually occupied during the awkward dinners they shared. 

 

Sitting through them would make his stomach turn with a mixture of disgust and hatred. He could only use the excuses ‘i’m not hungry’ and ‘my stomach hurts’ so many times before they sent him to the hospital.

 

They were awkward and forced because his mother was paranoid. She wanted to appear like the picture perfect family that had waffles on Wednesdays and tacos on Tuesdays. Even when no one was watching she had convinced herself they should still keep up the illusion that they were happy. Because it could be a lot worst. Taking one look at the Hansens, that was all they needed for the entire month to keep them together.

 

“So, why did you decide not to go? Are you feeling unwell?” His mother asks as she cracked open the oven to peep at the baking brownies. Before Jared could answer she was asking another question. So halfway through beginning his reply he shut up and heard her out.

 

“Can you lower the heat on this a little bit? I don’t want them to burn while I’m in the shower.”

 

“Sure thing, mom.” Jared nodded and did so with ease. All he had to do was look at it. His power didn’t require half as much focus as Evan’s did. Nor did it leave him with migraines so bad they left him puking into next week. “Oh and Evan had one of those little, like visions? He freaked out and started shaking real bad. He told me that I probably shouldn’t go today.”

 

“Poor boy. Did you give him a hug? Heidi says when he gets like that its best to hug him.” His mother’s face peeled into a solemn expression. Faint but present lines tainting her spotless, pale white skin. She almost looked as bad as Evan. Something was keeping her up at night and it might not have been the hookers his dad had been bringing home.

 

His dad…was revolting. Putting her through so much. Couldn’t he see how hard she was trying not to end up like Heidi and Evan? Wasn’t it clear?

 

 

“I um…” The very thought of hugging Evan made his stomach turn. But not in a bad, sick kind of way. But still in a way he rather not have it be. Someone had released a bucket of butterflies at the very bottom of his belly and now they were fluttering to the top. If he didn’t get over this pathetic Im-in-love-with-my-bestfriend phase things would become problematic. But rule number two of lying to somebody’s face was calling.

 

 _Nod and agree with whatever they say._ “Yeah we hugged.” Jared shrugged.

 

“Was it nice?” His mother said quietly. 

 

“Nah, it was pretty chilly out actually. I should have—“

 

She cut him off, “I meant the hug.”

 

Jared stared at her, confused. Today seemed off to a wonderful start. Not! Why ask if the hug was nice? Why even think he would think of the hug as being something super big of a thing? It wasn’t. He didn’t want a hug from Evan or anything. It wasn’t like that. No. No, it wasn’t like that at all.

 

“I..I don’t understand?” He avoided the question. Forcing his tone to come off as more perplexed than he actually was. She was trying to seek out the truth. His mother, despite only ever seeing what she wanted to see, had a good eye for bullshit. She just never used it. 

 

“Oh…never mind then. I’m going to go wash up. Tell me if Heidi comes over.” She moved from the kitchen and towards the stairs, retreating past a wall. Jared pretended like he couldn’t hear the pity in her voice. With ever word she uttered it felt like she was trying to tell him it was okay to think the way he thought. And that it was okay that he…wanted things boys weren’t supposed to want.

 

But that wasn’t okay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was downright _disgusting_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...straight....crushing?


	8. A Second Day With Jared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter picking up shortly after the last chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short Chapter :'c
> 
> This chapter was so friggen draining, art/writers block has me  
> quaking.

  


Jared was slipping through the thresholds of his consciousness with his legs crossed comfortably and dangled over the glossy arm of the den’s leather sofa. He had swaddled himself into a cocoon of mismatch covers, shielding his chilled bones like plates of warm armor. Expelling all hints of cold with satisfying efficiency and replacing them with a dangerous comfort.

  


If it were up to him he wouldn’t have made any attempt to disturb the calm that surrounded him. But with a single, all too dreaded sentence, his body was reacting before his brain. Pushing him out of his half dream-like state to place him back down on reality’s cruel doorstep.

  


  


  


  


_“What do you mean ‘Evan’s not here yet’, its 9:52!”_

  


  


The voice belonged to Heidi. Her words were being smothered by the blankets coiled around his body. Blinking away the haze of his sleep with great reluctance Jared sat upright. There was a faint pain creeping towards the nape of his neck. Shoulders tensed and cramped from squeezing his already small build onto the _smaller_ sofa. He should have just slept in his own room, in his own bed, like a normal person.

  


His blankets dripped away from his face. Their precarious wrapping coming undone like a loose ribbon. They gently cascaded down his shoulders and pooled at his lap while he struggled to twist his attention towards the dining room table.

  


The two familiar and awfully short women came into his blurred peripheral after a long moment of staring. 

 

Heidi’s shoulder length blonde locks were pulled into a messy bun which was coming undone by the seems. Strands of unkept light golden defied gravity with the exception of their downward curved tips. The black hair tie that kept the mess together looked to be on its last life. Straining to keep the uncombed display to a minimum.

  


Beneath her soft pear irises tears glossed over her eyes and clung to the thin bed of eyelashes there to catch them before they fell. 

  


“Heidi,” His mother’s tone was gentle but laced in a blatant caution. As if she were talking to a rabid dog ready to bite at anything that got too close. Heidi didn't have a temper but when she was scared anything could happen. “Sweetie, I’m sure he’ll be back soon.” A loud crackle of thunder made her words fall upon death ears. Guess even the universe doubted that statement.

  


Jared reached for the glasses he had propped up on the coffee table right besides a half empty glass of water. 

  


“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?!” Heidi’s shrill was loud enough to startle Jared into a jump. Her trembling hands collided with the fragile surface of their glass dining table. His grip on his glasses tightened until the temples creaked in protest. The lights flickered subsequently which caught the attention of the two mothers.

  


“Jared, oh…I’m so sorry, did I wake you?” Pushing his glasses to the bridge of his nose, Jared could finally make out the evidence of distress that coated Heidi’s features. She looked like Evan but twice as worst. Her forehead creased and folded, angry lines streaming through them to put more emphasis on her knitted brow. Her glittery nail polish was chipped, stray pieces of sparkling gold lay on the table. That much Jared could see. Her hands were shaking, and while not as bad as Evan’s there were dark rings forming around her eyes from lack of sleep. Did it run in the family or...

  


Jared shook his head and have a curt answer, “No.” He lied to spare her feelings.

  


Heidi let out a soft breath in temporary relief before returning her attention to his mother. Her eyes held an immeasurable amount of displeasure and with each slow blink a nasty tension bubbled. Jared could not help but to scowl at the display. Heidi was trying to make his mother feel guilty for whatever happened. As if Evan was her child to care for. Perhaps if she was home every once and a while this wouldn’t be happening.

  


“Im awake now.” Jared coughed to regain the mothers’ attention. Which worked because his mother was quick to take the exit that had been opened for her. She snapped her dark cocoa gaze away from Heidi’s and smiled hollowly to Jared. He could tell this was her unvocalized way of saying thanks.

  


She curved her way around the glass table and towards the den. Her sandals making the distinct _flip-flop_ sound as she hurried to his side. His mother leaned down to his height for a moment, her naturally soft voice becoming more hushed than usual.

  


“I didn’t tell her why you didn’t attend today, she’s already scared enough as is.” She whispered. 

  


“Oh..” Jared huffed out a small response, his gaze on Ms. Hansen pacing around their rather large kitchen. She shuffled her booted feet over to the stove and swiped up a chocolate rectangle from the pan placed on top of it. Then proceeded to wolf it down like it was her last meal and keep walking, tracking mud on the once spotless floor. 

  


“Did Evan really not come back?” He focused his attention else where. Like, _oh, suddenly how many lines there are in one wooden floorboard has piqued his interest!_

  


The thought of Evan genuinely going missing. Or something bad happening to him in general was not one he would like to dwell over. Because…well this was…this was fucking Evan! He didn’t deserve to be kidnapped or, or killed. Sure he could be weird or quirky and on average more awkward than a baby deer on ice. But he was still Jared’s friend— family friend…

  


He was still the bubbly, eccentric and oddly adorable person he was five years ago. He still carried that insecure look in his eyes when he smiled that shy, toothless smile of his. That side of him may have been buried down nowadays but it was still there. It was still there and Jared missed it. But he could very well settle for something over nothing at all.

  


If Evan had somehow died today then Jared did not believe he could walk through the next one knowing the last thing he had directly said to him was: _“You’re acting weird.”_ Not goodbye and have a good one or be safe. It was him just stating the very fucking obvious character trait Evan possessed.

  


“No, i’m afraid not. He isn’t answering his phone either. I called the school but they said he’d gone home on the bus.” His mother shook her head and took a few slow steps back as Heidi trucked towards them. Jared held back the urge to call bullshit on the school’s answer when Heidi sat down on his legs. Her fingers were knitting through her already messy hair, she muttered a hasty apology to him but didn’t move. She had her phone pressed up against her ear and the case felt too vibrant for the bleakness of the situation. Jared maneuvered his legs free from beneath her weight. This wouldn't be the first time he had seen her this way.

  


“Evan doesn’t always answer his phone.” Heidi said as she pulled her own phone away from her ear, frowning at it as the call was sent straight to voicemail. She had reacted the exact same way the week before Evan's father walked out on them both. Worried out of her wits and looking disheveled and shaken to her very core. Only that time she wasn't the least bit hesitant to break down into a mess of sobs and use Jared's mother as a shoulder to cry on. Jared was too young at the time to understand. At the time he had been misinformed that she was only crying because 'the aliens stole all of the brownies.' Yeah. He was pretty gullible as a kid. That or he didn't care.

  


“But he always—” Her and Jared both began to say, Heidi quieted down to let Jared continue. He appreciated this. Her composure may have been gone but her manners stood strong. “He always has it charged…” Jared said for her, then turned to Heidi with a knowing nod. “…just incase of an emergency.” Heidi finished, nodding along with Jared.

  


Jared’s mother looked a little lost. “Do you think you can track it or something, Jared?”

  


 

Feeling a bit put on the spot as both pairs of eyes fell on him, Jared gave a tense shrug. He wanted to help just as much as the next guy but another part of him doubted Evan was in serious trouble. It just didn’t feel…like something that could ever happen. 

  


“It depends, if his phone is turned off.” He replies, quiet. Aware of how flat his tone was when he said it. He might as well have just said, ‘I don’t really care.’ Because Heidi looked almost insulted by his dry reply. Almost.

  


“Why would his phone be turned off, Jared?” The edge in her voice is sharper than every knife in the pantry. He resists flinching, not wanting his mother and Heidi to argue over someone like himself.

  


Jared kind of snapped back. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s out for once.” There was a tang of spite in his tone. And it became more apparent when Heidi’s patience began to wear itself thin.

  


“Out? Evan doesn’t go out.” Heidi shakes her head in denial, and she isn’t wrong. Evan didn’t really go out. They used to play at the park when they were younger or hang out by an arcade that shut down a few years back. Now, Jared was absorbed in the disgusting hell that made up some the deep web’s most notorious sites and Evan was. Well. 

  


Jared was rather ashamed to say that he didn’t check in with Evan as often as he should have. Scratch that. He didn’t check in with Evan at all. He was so focused on focusing on anything else but Evan that he stopped a long while ago. Jared may have purposely put an indefinite amount of space between them but one thing is for sure, Evan did not go out. He once rambled on for an hour made up of broken and unfinished sentences regarding the dangers of outdoors. Especially at night. At the time Jared couldn't care less as he was wandering into beginning of his stupid phase. He would bring up things he knew Evan adored and become enraptured by the precise movement of his lips. The way they twitched into a smile as he spoke about his favorite trees in the park they used to visit. How they curved downward just enough to hide his teeth at all times. Jared couldn't get over the way he laughed. The genuine kind! Not the nervous and tense ones he was accustomed to hearing nowadays. But the ones that forced the corner of his hazel eyes to crinkle like torn paper. The ones that made his face redden with the temporary merriment that accompanied it. Or the time where Evan had admitted to feeling insecure about how 'sharp' his incisors were. He had gone to the dentist on a school day- way back in junior high- and she dropped one of the utensils down his throat, screamed and called him a dog. That was the most of what Jared could get out of him at the time anyway. If it weren't obvious, Evan was pretty shaken from that. Whether it was from being called a dog or almost chocking on a mini mirror, Evan swore he would never give a toothy smile again. Jared spent the entire remainder of that day trying to convince him otherwise. Somehow it ended with Evan biting his hand to prove a point, there was blood everywhere in a matter of seconds. Jared had never felt more flustered in his entire life. Because. To put it bluntly, it wasn't the pain keeping him up at five in the morning.

  


  


Family friends. That was all they were. And all they would ever be.

  


  


  


“How would you know that?” Jared dare say, agitated from the bitter memory.

  


Heidi stared at him in momentary shock before letting her body rag-doll into the cushions of the leather sofa. "Since when does he keep secrets?" She whimpered more to herself than anyone else as her blank eyes flickered over the dark phone screen in her hand. "He used to tell me everything."

  


 Jared and his mother both watched as she contacted Evan's number, again and again. Each time it was all the same. A robotic and computerized voice telling her to leave a message at the tone. By what had to be the twenty fifth attempt, Jared had began to wish he never opened his mouth to begin with. Evan would never be out with other people, actually socializing like a normal person. That just wasn't the type of person he was anymore. It was wishful thinking to believe he was somewhere warm and cozy, tucked away tight while the midst of the thunderstorm passed the world by...

  


Yeah. Wishful thinking alright. 

  


  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of stupid things are going on and a lot  
> of stupid things are getting to me...


	9. Let's Be Real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor's hiding things.  
> Evan's having some bad dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wOAH look, its a rare occurrence?!  
> Ngl i've been working on this chapter  
> without actually working on this chapter.
> 
> This chapter is prone to changes :Y

Pushing away the gripping lassitude that accompanied the warm embrace of a bed on a cold day was just one of the many struggles Evan faced. He had grown accustomed to swallowing down the beckoning urge to throw the blankets over his head and hide in the darkness of his own comfortability. 

 

Giving in to sable shadows that lurked in the far corners of his vision and haunted his better judgement of the world. It seemed so much easier. But giving in meant giving up and as far as he was concerned he wasn’t allowed to. 

 

At least not physically. 

 

Not when his mother worked so hard. Nearly fifteen hours a day, six thousand three hundred minutes a week. She wanted to believe he could be something more so she slaved through snappy coworkers, cranky patients and unfriendly faces so he wouldn’t have to. She absorbed the harsh comments and side ways glances and turned them into fuel, used them to push her forward when nothing else would. Heidi smiled when Evan didn’t, laughed when he couldn’t, and remained optimistic in the darkest of times. She was holding the last candle in the mess of ink black that had started to become his life. 

Evan didn't want to believe it at first. That the only thing keeping him from spiraling down was a thinning thread.

 

A cruel reality of something stone cold and frozen. A disastrous realization that made his throat tighten like a knot whenever it washed up onto the shore of his mind. Braving the waves of time, his thoughts came crashing forth all screaming the same thing at him.

 

Evan was being haunted by a reoccurring nightmare. But he couldn’t label it as a nightmare. That would not only be an understatement but an incorrect use of the word itself, given the context. Nightmares are just _bad_ dreams. What he was experiencing when all the lights flickered off was far from a bad dream. Because dreams aren’t real and they typically never become anything more than a gratified figment of the imagination.

 

The imagination never knew any true boundaries. Yet some things were just beyond human comprehension. Things that remained a few steps away from the borderline. Untouched and therefor untainted. 

All there is a blank wall with a door painted over it. For lack of a better analogy.

Nothing but a hologram positioned so far out into the distance that it would take half a life time to find it. Strategically placed so that by the time he saw it he had something to look forward to. And by the time he reached it, it wouldn’t make any sense to give up. After all he had gotten that far. Searched that long. Why not face the rest of it?

 

 

From far away it looks like the answer, the room that will open and lead him away from his problems. A fairy tale labeled ‘Hopes and Dreams’ or ‘Future’, and specifically ‘Happiness.’ All he had to do was walk over and twist the knob.

 

The closer you get — the older you get — the more apparent it becomes that this door isn’t what everyone made it out to be. Evan could see the paint chipping. He was too close to the door. Too close to a truth too real to burry down. His eyes were wide open begging to be shut. Repressing the new information completely impossible.

 

It wasn’t real. The future.

 

None of it and all of it. He closed his eyes and was met with an endless ocean of white. This was what the future was. This is what death would be. It faded so slowly into black that only when things looked gray could he tell that the color was seeping. Being drained out into the nothing that surrounded him. 

 

Bodiless, only his conscience remained. Invaded by the still pool that was devoid of all. Alabaster to ivory, ivory to pearl, pearl to cinder and cinder to an ugly shade of storm cloud. The more the color drained the less Evan tended to feel. Recollections of memories that bubbled forth, trying to fill the silence with what ever it could. 

 

They where, to put it simply.

 

Dissipating. 

 

Fading in the gradual loop of storm cloud, metallic to shadow, to ebony, to black…repeat that. And forget something.

 

Every time the color would splash back into white it felt like another memory was leaving him. And they kept leaving him until he became one with the silence. Stuck in an indefinite space slowly drifting to the inky black…then—

 

“ _Ow_! Goddamnit, Acorn. What the fuck?” Connor’s voice was something short of reassuring to Evan. His brain was made up of mush, thoughts pulverized and molded to bend at the will of his body. Instincts lost in the collision of an epiphany, Evan strained to pull himself into an upright position, his movements bordering robotic. The only thing keeping him from slipping back into the state of nothing was his habit of doing something. He had yet to register what Connor had said to him. Too focused on regaining what he had lost.

 

Evan’s body felt distorted. His head a frozen river only just beginning to thaw out. Giving way to slushy ice and snow particles flowing through the chilled water. Commands. Simple commands like inhale. Blink, exhale, repeat.

 

_“…Acorn?”_

 

He could grasp a weak hold on that as his fingers scrunched up against something soft. Touch…the feeling in his finger tips. His slickness of his sweating palms and strain on his screwed eye lids. The smell of vanilla ice cream. Evan felt uncomfortably aware of all of it. Their presence. It was there he just couldn’t tap into it. Everything he did was out of the memory of doing which. Not him, physically telling himself to do the aforementioned things.

 

_“Evan..?”_

 

The movement of the time that had passed was practically foreign. Without realizing it he had managed to pull himself into a defensive ball. Hugging his thighs with his face buried in a mess of blankets where his knees should have been. It took a moment. Maybe a lot more than that before the feeling in Evan’s body had begun to return. The presence of himself. Not something stuck in an abyss of nothing. 

 

Something.

 

“Earth to treeboy, do you copy?” Connor prodded his shoulder. His voice had become more agitated than hostile. Though he was evidently annoyed. Not that Evan could tell. Still struggling to drag himself out of a sludge of murky waters. He instinctively leaned into Connor’s touch. Something that would be more than easy to focus on.

 

His consciousness was split into three. One portion of it was still completely dazed from the 'realization dream'. Or so he liked to call it. The other two were in a constant battle. Bickering like an old married couple. One shrieking at the top of its lungs that he should abort mission, pack up whatever senses he had left and run. The other speaking in a calm, more reassuring voice, saying that all was fine and there wasn’t any danger.

 

Connor had wrapped his arms around Evan’s waist and pulled him closer, swaying his decision to listen to the latter. _This was alright._ Even if Evan was still trying to process everything. This was a start. Sinking into the comforting warmth that radiated off of the taller’s body. Listening to the distant, rhythmic beat of his heart. Definitely okay. Evan let the malaise that lurked around his soul fade. Become nothing more than a bad memory. He shut out its predatory gaze and welcomed the embrace.

 

“If I knew it would be this bad I wouldn’t have done it.” Connor grumbled. He was trying to move, presumably to regain a comfortable position. A quiet creak emanated from the mattress as he stirred. Evan made a few futile attempts to nuzzle closer to Connor and shield his face from a bright —but dimmed to a reader’s — warm light. Instead of the blankets he used the torn fabric of Connor’s black hoodie to hide behind. 

 

“…don’t apologize…you said you wouldn’t…” Evan slurred out, though the rest of his words were a mixture of incoherent mumbles and murmurs. He breathed in the scent that clung to Connor’s hoodie and the faint wisps of the vanilla candles. They correlated well with one another. Nothing spectacular, but nothing appalling either.

 

“Are you…are you good?” Connor’s inquiry was mostly drowned at by the sound of rapid clicking. The distinct sound of buttons being pushed down in a methodical, heavily precise manner. The consistent tapping of fingers darting across a keyboard with effortless grace. 

 

Evan could only hum out a response as sleep threatened to tackle him back into the dark abyss. He didn’t have the strength to tense at the very thought of that, despite wanting to. It was a bitter memory like the chalky aftertaste of crushed pills too difficult to swallow. Evan pried open his own eyes and winced as the light of a computer screen blurred his adjusting vision. 

 

“I-it happens…” He replied after some time. The exact amount he couldn’t be sure.

 

“So, this isn’t because of TCE?” Connor asked. Again his words were accompanied by quick taps and the occasional click. Evan squinted to see the time displayed on the computer screen. His eyes automatically darting down to the bottom right hand corner as that was where the numbers were usually sectioned. When they weren’t there he turned his attention the the corner above it.

 

“What…?” Evan mumbled as he looked at the time, _Wen_ _10:32 PM_. 

 

“The cancel effect, dumbass.” Connor reiterated and put an unnecessary amount ofemphasis on the word ‘dumbass.’ As if it were the main point.

 

Evan’s silence must have qualified as confusion. Connor let out an aggressive sigh and quickly opened a new tab next to the small chat box he was using. A series of messages popped in, all labeled with names Evan didn’t recognize. He wasn’t the type to snoop but Connor wasn’t making any attempt to hide the little texts. Taking it as an unspoken invitation he helped himself to reading a few. And it did not take long before he realized that something was wrong.

 

____________________________________________________________________

 

Is the Licorice gone yet? ◊

 

 

◊ MeltedIceCream: What licorice??

 

◊ toffee sundae: red or black

 

                                                                                                         Black.◊

 

 

◊ MeltedIceCream: Nobody told me there was Licorice!

 

◊ Chocolate Sprinkles: Yes, the Black Licorice is gone.

Lots of red left though.

 

◊ MeltedIceCream: WHAT LICORICE?! I WANT SOME!!

 

◊ toffee sundae: meg i think he means the bodies

 

◊ Chocolate Sprinkles: I think he wanted to code this for

a reason, fucktart.

 

◊ toffee sundae: whoops lol

 

◊ MeltedIceCream: Does that mean he has a watcher?

 

◊ MeltedIceCream: Hellooooooo!~ Why aren’t you nosy!

 

◊ MeltedIceCream: Stop snooping around, silly. Nothing

to see here :P

 

◊ MeltedIceCream: I see you still watching….

 

____________________________________________________________________

 

 

“Are you even— really?” Connor began then cut himself off half way through as he followed Evan’s gaze to the new line of messages. Sucking his teeth, he closed out the chat box with the hasty click of a button and widened out the new tab. There was a lengthy paragraph waiting. It seemed to go into descriptive detail about the supposed ‘cancel effect’. 

 

“Sorry.” Evan tried not to let on how unnerved he was about the last text. The fear was subtle though, and easily pushed away with a few steady breaths. Which was something new. Since under any other circumstance he would have been close to heaving. His stomach twisted, then fell still. Giving way to a concerning calm. Evan wasn’t sure if he should’ve been grateful for it.

 

“I didn’t take you for the nosy type.” There was that anger. Those words felt like knives sticking into his skin. Cutting down him and his defenses with their derogatory undertones. Evan watched Connor ball his palms into tight fits. Stared at the color draining from his knuckles. Listened to the incessant tapping of Connor’s hand against the palm rest of the laptop. Past it he could make out the sound of his breathing. Heavy, long sighs with each exhale. Shallow, curt gasps with each inhale. 

 

“I-Im not.” Evan pulled himself away from Connor and shook his head. He drew back. Put some much needed distance between them. The half of his conscience that had been rooting for him to start running was growing louder. He let Connor have all the space he needed to breathe before he went and demanded it. Something told Evan he was five seconds away from being shoved off of the bed. So he shuffled further away until he was close enough to dangle his feet off the edge.

 

“So you’re going to sit there and tell me you didn’t just read that?” Connor seethed.

 

“That’s not- no..I—“ Evan began.

 

“So you did.” Connor cut him off with his venom laced tone. He slammed the laptop shut with so much force it echoed throughout the near empty room. Evan swore he heard something creak but he couldn’t tell if it was just the bed or the computer. 

 

He scrambled for a decent excuse as Connor glared at him. “Its n-not like I could make a-a-anything out of it.” His racing thoughts stilled, then moved quicker than before. And yet again stilled. Like they were taking several double takes, they stopped and slowed at random. His heart matched the hectic movements. Erratic and unconfined, the butterflies in his stomach began to take flight. Something about making eye contact with Connor seriously messed with his head. Evan felt ill with a primordial level of confusion. His body was dazed in a state of perplexity, trying to make it up to his mind. 

 

Should he be scared?

 

“But you still looked.” Connor’s cold tone had grown impossibly colder. Hollow with the contempt in his voice.

 

“Y-y-y-yes but—” It shouldn’t have been this difficult to explain. To convert his thoughts into words and just say something that would make Connor calm down. Since right now that five seconds away from being shoved looked a lot like two seconds. And Connor’s previous composure seemed to have evaporated into the vanilla scented air. The smell did nothing to mend Evan’s fractured nerves. Instead it pushed him closer into the hands of his fear.

 

Though. What he was feeling couldn’t be defined as fear.

The fear he was used to was his stomach turning until it wrenched, gut sloshing into a mush of solidified stones that weighed down his entire body. The fear that constrained his movements and flooded his head with an unethical list ‘what ifs’ long enough to train down into his lungs and hinder them with unnecessary strain. They clouded his ability to think. Hazed facts with heavy truths and disturbing possibilities. His chest would tightened to the point where it felt like it could implode at any second. 

 

That was the fear he was accustomed to. What ever he was feeling now, it couldn’t quite compete. His body wasn’t reacting in the way it usually did when he was concerned about something that was out of his control. Still, he couldn’t think straight enough to find a solution to the apparent problem. His mind kept wandering off to the worst of things, things that wouldn’t help him. 

 

Thoughts of his mother finding out he had somehow died while she was away at work. She would probably scream. That or cry…definitely mourn. Though a small part of Evan doubted that. There was a slight chance that she would be relieved. No longer having to worry every second of the day about his well being…if he died it would be the world giving her a break. Doing her a favor.

 

“But what, do you think i’m fucking stupid? Did you think you were gonna find some big, juicy secret to use as a shitty excuse to run your mouth? Are you going to spread some half-assed rumor now about how I’m a goddamn psychopath planning to shoot up the fucking school? Yeah. That’s exactly what you’re going to do isn’t it? Then you’ll have every-fucking-body staring at me like i’m some kind of five-headed freak.” Connor would barely let him get a word of defense in. His words were quick and accusatory.

 

Each sentence releasing a dozen more butterflies out into Evan's stomach until it felt like the insects were clawing at his insides. Their thin wings shifted into pointed razors with poison at the serrated edge. He could feel the familiar fear he was used to seeping in and regretted not appreciating its calm counterpart. 

 

“What the he-…” The curse wedged itself in Evan’s throat as, simultaneously, all of the butterflies in his stomach dropped dead. A blood chilling sensation ran throughout his body. Suddenly the way Connor was adjusting his tight grip on the sides of the silver laptop filled Evan with a sense of contingent dread. One he was all too familiar with. “—Why would think that?” He somehow willed himself to say. 

 

And to his repentance he regretted it not a second later when the laptop found itself being flung in his general vicinity. 

 

Flung being a vast understatement as it zipped past Evan’s head, centimeters away from his face and crashed into a bookcase with a _loud_ roar. The laptop tackled the oakwood shelves and rammed the dusty books from their cozy placement. The wood creaked before collapsing in on itself. Papers and dust particles flew everywhere. All the books on the shelf tumbled down onto the wood floor. Which caved in as the laptop smashed into that too and then snapped in half.

 

Evan’s heart decided to stop the second the laptop had been hurled his way. His mind switching off the same second his heart had. Leaving nothing but a blank space waiting to be restocked.

 

He instinctively tried to move out of the way to avoid being hit with an airborne MacBook, but his attempts did more damage than good. As his feet made contact with the hardwood ground Evan’s legs decided to reduce themselves to spaghetti strings. _Great job_ , first his head then his heart and now his legs. Nothing was working with him today, lucky Jared for being able to opt out while he still had the chance. 

 

Not wanting to bust his ass his hands reached for anything to avoid feeling any more vulnerable. But apparently he hadn’t realized how badly his hands were sweating. Nor did he account for the following contingencies. The closest thing besides the bed was the small nightstand. It wasn’t half as sturdy as it looked and it tipped over once too much of his weight had been pressed down against it.

 

The plate of mostly melted candle sticks fell off the unstable surface. One of the wicks managed to put its flame out against Evan’s hand in the quick process. 

 

_Smart, very smart. Maybe you are a dumbass Evan_. His mind chides at him as he frantically moved to regain the balance that he lost, on his own. Gripping the tingling wound on the side of his right hand with his left, he scrambles away from the broken bookcase as it creaked. A few moments after Evan had taken several precautionary steps back the bookcase fell forward and landed against the bed.

 

It creaked, loudly, again. Obviously…and Connor sat and stared with a disquieting expression. As if even he was shocked that he had done so much damage. But that look melted away to something unreadable, blank. Almost lifeless but not quite. One moment it seemed like he was close to apologizing, or laughing. Maybe just saying anything at all. Then the next any trace of that had been stolen away by an invisible force. Jared used to scold Evan for doing that. Making it out to seem like he was about to say something then quickly deciding against it. For Connor, instead of the words being snatched away it looked like the emotion was. And it was a little scary.

 

Evan was stuck. Boxed in on all sides. Unlike a caged animal he didn’t panic or retaliate. He just stepped back until he felt his back being pressed up against the Lyptus or Teak wood wall. He still couldn’t tell the difference but it wasn’t like that mattered much. Any second now the elderly couple would come storming in and demand that he and Connor both leave before they caused any more damage. His gaze trained over the door for an indefinite amount of time. He stared at it expectingly for god knows how long before realizing that no one was coming. And besides the sound of quiet murmurs and hushed barks it was practically silent. Evan didn’t tear his eyes from the door though. Instead he kept his eyes locked on the light leaking through beneath it.

 

He let himself lose track of time again and get sucked into deep thought. A slow process of recovering all of the things he managed to let go of. Like how he had winded up in the room in the first place or why Connor was there with him, in the first place. He wasn’t wearing his beloved striped polo shirt. It had been replaced with a soft pink sweater with ivory or perhaps alabaster stripes near the hems. Despite its girlish color theincredibly soft fabric hugged his skin in a comforting matter. Evan couldn't find himself complaining. It blocked out the previous cold that made him crave the warmth of a hot cup of cocoa. Something he could go for…Nearly being stabbed to death in the middle of a forest pushed aside, hot chocolate was all he needed.

 

It felt odd to think that way after all that happened. It barely made sense. The only thing on his mind was warm drink. After nearly being hit in the face with a laptop. After waking up in a place he didn’t recognize. After winding up in clothes that were not his. 

 

Every time he stumbled across a situation that should have him struggling to breath he felt…almost weightless. The burden that he was in a constant battle against just, gone. Poof. He must be dreaming. Things this good only happened in dreams. Well— not in Evan’s dreams but if he hadn’t known better he would have assumed this was a dream. Just a dream in general. Not his own since all of Evan’s dreams were horrifying, this was child’s play.

 

 

“Sorry.” Evan barely recognized his voice when the simple word slipped past his parted lips. He sounded downright exasperated which was a firm contradiction to what he felt. 

“Why the fuck,” Connor’s voice wavered from hostile to fragile within a split second,“are you apologizing to me?” Had they swapped out for a moment there? Evan was certain that was the tone he should have been using. A voice that was more delicate than paper thin wine glasses. Quiet like a whisper shared amongst few others.

 

But it seemed to move in his favor. He could sense the advantage point he was given to right this situation. Well, right it as much as possible. The bookcase and night stand would stay tipped over. The shelf and laptop would still remain broken. The objects were bound to remain broken. If Evan could fix them he would out of respect since this was his fault. That was only fair. But he wasn’t gifted with the power to make things go right when he needed them to. He had to work for that. Right now he had his trembling hands full with making sure Connor’s mercurial nature didn’t ruin more of the bedroom. 

 

That was the least he could do.

 

“I…I um, invaded your candy-coded privacy and h-hit you. I think.” Looking back at the messages in retrospect would have made Evan scoff. Or at least laugh. It looked so childishly innocent. _MeltedIceCream, Toffee Sundae? Those weren’t the type of code names to take seriously._ Although that just might have been the point. From what Evan could infer black licorice was code for bodies. Hopefully not human (but that was wishful thinking). After all he was nearly stabbed. 

 Not nearly but he could have been. Evan knew he was going to get stabbed if he didn’t turn around. Was _nearly_ too dramatic?

 

“You kicked me.” Connor corrected him. Though his voice was still shallow his tone had grown dry. He must have been trying hard to suppress something. Evan knew from experience. He could tell there just had to be something Connor wanted to say.

“…My bad, sorry.”

 

Then there was another gust of silence. Evan couldn’t think of anything to fill it with so he shrank against the wall and welcomed it. Trying to resent the quiet was pointless. For the past few years Evan had been wallowing in the motion of silence with nothing but his thoughts to keep him afloat. In hindsight that wasn’t the best way to cope with his loneliness but he had done it anyway. Time and time again. He would probably continue to do that as well. It wasn’t like he had any real friends to fill the empty noise with.

 

Connor was looking at him. That much Evan could tell because. Well. It isn’t difficult to notice someone staring. Especially when they’re staring with intent and not just looking in your general vicinity while daydreaming. Eye contact would be awkward so Evan did all in his power not to meet—oh too late.

 

“….”

 

“…”

 

 

_Great, wonderful conversation. Say something and stop staring like a weirdo._

 

 

“I should probably go.” ; “I think you should go.” 

 

They spoke over each other but the message got across just fine. Home. Where they say the heart is. Even though the best thing that could be waiting there for Evan was a twenty on the countertop accompany by an apology sticky note. It would say something like, _‘sorry hun, can’t make it tonight. Order takeout’._

 

After a bad interaction with a hostile looking pizza guy he resorted to hiding the money and claiming he’d eaten. He had stocked up nearly two hundred dollars worth of twenties. Every time he reached four hundred he just snuck it back into his mother’s purse. The routine never once failed him. It wasn’t like seeing four hundred extra dollars in your wallet was something to complain about.

 

“I’ll drive you.” Connor pulled himself away from the blankets and stood up. He blocked Evan’s view of the window behind him. 

 

“You…will?” Evan wasn’t so sure that was a great idea. He didn’t bother to hide the uncertainty in his voice either. 

 

Based off of the hectic events of today Evan began to realize the last thing he wanted was Connor knowing where he lived. No tiny little voice in his head tried to defend Connor when the realization dawned. No matter which way Evan turned to look, the flag was still bright red. Which meant his six sense was warning him he was in the process of making a mistake.

 

Perhaps a big one.

 

 

For christ’s sake why couldn’t his six sense tell him something good for a change?

It would be amazing to sit back and get a sense of euphoria in place of dread. Maybe that was what he derived from looking at Connor. Well, not really. Euphoria was a massive overstatement. But it definitely gave him a small boost of confidence and he hadn’t freaked out once. That was an actual miracle. Evan smiled at the thought, his mother would be ecstatic when she found out. 

If she found out...

“Yeah, what are you going to do: walk through a pitch black forest all night until you find your way home?” Connor said nonchalantly while fishing for what had to be his keys. He pulled out the all too familiar pocket knife and Evan’s smile twisted into a grimace within seconds. Just as quickly Connor pockets the knife on the left side of his sweater and pulls his keys from his jean pockets. He didn’t seem to notice Evan’s discomfort. _But its not that big of a deal, Evan, get over it._

 

“Don’t just stand there, I have somewhere to be in a few hours.” Only after Connor makes his way over to the door does Evan move. Still cautious from the wave of mixed feelings he was being attacked with, he lagged behind. Despite but not in spite of Connor’s statement. Evan shuffled across the messy bed and caught a glimpse of the darkness that awaited him outside. Beyond the window there was nothing but black. It was so dark he could have assumed someone poured ink over the glass. Whatever. Evan wasn’t afraid of the dark. It was intimidating, yes, but harmless all the same.

 

Like a lost puppy he followed in suit of Connor and tried to avoid the disdained looks the elderly couple shot their way. Mostly Connor’s way, but Evan was right there beside him so collateral damage took its tole. 

 

They walked a bit quicker towards the door and within seconds the chilly September air was welcoming them. One soft breeze curled passed him and Evan wanted to go straight back inside. But it was a little late for that.

 

The only light emanated was from bits and pieces of moon light that managed to drip through the scattered pine leaves. Evan couldn’t see the trees and the fact that Connor’s hoodie was black didn’t help. He walked in his footprints until Connor came to a stop and Evan saw the headlights of a car flicker on. It was brief and accompanied by that distinct click of the doors unlocking. Yet it still gave Evan enough time to note that the car was a dark blue, ultramarine or cobalt. He didn’t have enough time to tell.

 

 

 

_“Well, um. F-favorite color?”_

_“You’re wasting twenty questions that I have to answer honestly on a fucking color?”_

_“J-just answer the question, please!”_

_“Its pink, Acorn. Or blue.”_

_“Would you ever wear it?”_

 

Connor hadn’t answer the last question but that might have been due to the fact that Evan said he didn’t have to. Now might be a way to slink in that answer, free of inquisitional charge.

 

“So…does this mean you prefer blue?” Evan asked into the darkness that surrounded him. He had to catch himself and double back before he followed Connor to the driver’s seat. Then make his way in a swift series of feet shuffling to the passenger side. It was too dark to just walk straight forward. Each step felt like he was moving down a flight of stairs with his eyes closed. He didn’t know if he had reached the safety of ground or just another step. Every move he made needed to be precise. What if he tripped and fell over a rock or tree root? What if he walked into a whole tree or something?

 

“What?” He heard Connor say before he ducked into the car, not exactly giving Evan enough time to explain. Evan pulled open the door and sank into the polyester seat. His hands scramble to buckle in the seat belt while simultaneously making attempts to close the door behind him. So torn between trying to deem which one more important enough to come first; neither got done as quickly as they could have been.

 

Connor reached over at some point to close Evan’s door, mumbling ‘ _for fucks sake’_ as the door clicked shut. Even then Evan still struggled with his seat belt for an embarrassing amount of time. 

 

“And for the record, I wouldn’t go driving around in a pink car.” Connor shoved the key into the ignition and watched the car grumble to life. “How degrading is that?” He adds while Evan can’t help but to think that its not more degrading then fumbling with a belt buckle for three minutes.

 

“So you like pink then?” Evan inquires as the buckle —finally— clicks.

 

It takes a while for Connor to respond, he glances over his shoulder before putting the car in reverse. They back out of what Evan assumes is the driveway. The only sound being the faint rumble of the engine and the leaves and sticks being crushed by the car wheels.

 

“No…its like, my go-to answer out of respect.” Connor shakes his head. They’re still moving backwards. Evan inquires “What does that mean?” as he notes that the road is a bit bumpy. 

But what could he have been expecting? They were in the middle of the forest. Eerie shadows loom around the long and slender pine trees that seem to extend all the way to the sky. The illusion of depth given to them by the crow feather black shadows that surround them.

 

“It means—” There’s a long pause as the trees begin to widen out and fade into the distance. The car’s headlights no longer able to detect them. There was a new scenery. A dark grey concrete road. Evan sighed out in relief, finally something reassuring. “—that blue is my favorite color.”

 

Evan tucked his hands between his thighs to warm them. “I meant the out of respect part.” 

 

“Don’t wanna talk about that.” The reply is hastily given and emphasized by the way the car picks up speed. Evan felt the butterflies in his stomach flutter back to life and no they aren’t the good kind. 

 

They were the please-slow-down-or-ill-puke-kind. 

 

The I-should-have-never-gotten-on-this-roller-coaster-kind.

 

The why-did-i-click-on-that-link-kind.

 

He sucks in a breath and shrinks into the passenger seat. Any strength he had to make conversation flying away as 40 mph accelerated into to 90 within a few seconds. Now would be a wonderful time to get lost in idle thought. To focus his attention on anywhere else but the speeding death machine he willingly strapped himself into. The only thing that greeted him on his right was a window of darkness. On his left was Connor and his stone cold expression. Actually. No not stone cold. But Evan didn’t want to risk getting caught staring while trying to elucidate his thoughts. That could mean another awkward conversation. 

 

That or he would just piss Connor off again. If that happened Evan wouldn’t be able to bring himself to be upset. Getting told off for staring? Pretty reasonable. Most people didn’t like being stared at. It was unnerving, distracting…

 

They dart past the first speed limit sign Evan can actually make out. It read something along the lines of  **65** in a big bold font. Connor was definitely speeding. Evan couldn’t bring himself to check by how many miles but he knew well that _65mph_ never made him feel this lightheaded. But he wasn’t used to being in a car so late at night, especially not with a stranger. His stomach was knotting to keep down what little food he managed earlier. The sudden fear of actually vomiting became all too real. Connor pulled the steering wheel and made turn sharp enough cut through steel. There was no warning prior to his actions. The wheels shrieked out the terror Evan wished he could vocalize as the vehicle abruptly changed its direction and sped in a new one. All like nothing had even happened.

 

 

Connor’s gaze snapped to Evan for a split second before returning to the road. At least he knew that at the speed he was going he couldn’t afford to take his eyes off of the road. That was a step.

 

“Can you _please_ shut up, and just. Fucking, like, breathe?” Again his words spilled out with haste. Blurted so quickly they slurred into one another. Like he was worried over something. If Evan wasn’t so focused on himself he might have noticed Connor gripping onto the wheel like it was a life line. Or the way Connor had taken to biting his lower lip until it bled. While Evan definitely smelled the blood the second it was drawn his attention was captivated by something more important. Specifically not puking on the dashboard and making his chances of being thrown out of a moving vehicle skyrocket. That thought did nothing to help Evan regulate his breathing. It might have even made it worst.

 

“What—?”

 

“You’ve been breathing like someone kicked you in the stomach, twice. Stop it.” Connor demands, if only it were that simple.

 

Evan felt like he had been holding his breath when he finally sighed out, “oh..” Its not long before he finds himself swinging the hand that isn’t gripping onto the seatbelt strap, over his mouth. He felt the contents of his stomach swimming towards his esophagus and it took every shred of power to force it back down. 

 

“Do you want me to slow down or something?” Before Connor was even finished speaking Evan had begun to nod vigorously. Since that was exactly what he needed right now. To take things slow. Be steady. Breathe in, breathe o—

 

 

“Well must suck to be you. I already said I have somewhere to be in a couple’ve hours. I can’t afford to slow down just because you feel a little sick.”

_Was Connor always this insouciant or did someone piss in his cereal this morning?_

 

Evan made a face and to shake the thought, kept the conversation rolling, “so is this about the ‘black licorice’?”

 

“Is this really the conversation you want to be having?” Connor questioned without looking at him.

 

“Why candy-coded text?” Evan decided to ignore that question just for the sake of not letting the conversation in general die. All about conversing. Socializing was healthy, even if it was with a possible serial killer. Evan wanted to focus on something other than the pit forming at the middle of his stomach. Connor’s voice specifically.

 

“Why not?” 

 

Evan shrugs and tries to adjust the seatbelt strap. “Seems a little morbid.”

 

“How so?” Connor asks. Judging by faintest shift in his tone Evan can tell he’s just beginning to take interest. Which was good. Very good. It made it easier to ask the questions that really needed to be addressed. And there wasn’t any time like the present. 

 

“Maybe not morbid so much as… _aberrant_.”

 

“Gee Captain Obvious, want a cookie for that one?” Connor scoffs and his tone grows dry once more. He might have been expecting something better. Evan frowned and mentally scolded himself. But it wasn’t like he _wasn’t_ used to being a general disappointment. So why did it sting so badly to be treated like one?

 

“Tell—” Evan cut himself off, restarted his sentence. “Mind telling me what it was about?” 

“Kinda.”

“Just because you don’t want to doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.” Evan attempted to press.

 

“Just because you want me to doesn’t mean I should.” Connor countered. He was dodging the question which meant the answer was worth hiding. Though Evan wasn’t interested in an answer so much as he was a response. 

 

“Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what exactly?”

 

“Answering all my questions with more questions, avoiding answers and leaving me hanging.” Evan could hear the edge in his own voice. It both startled and pleased him, this didn’t ever happen. But neither did ten at night car rides with complete strangers.

 

“Well you can’t always get what you want, the world doesn’t revolve around you.” Connor snaps back but there isn’t half as much bite in his tone. The response was more nonchalant, excessively so. His voice was so blank that it didn’t feel like the comment was even being directed towards Evan. He took it as a sign that Connor was actually making an effort not to raise his voice. That or he lost all sense in caring.

 

Evan wasn’t sure where to go from that point. Whether to agree with Connor or change the subject. What he was of sure was that no matter which lane he took he would somehow end up right back where he started, if not any further. Back at square one.

 

“Evan—” Connor began.

“—Acorn.” Evan cut him off and corrected him.

 

“Didn’t think you’d take such a liking to the nickname.”

“I never said that I hated it.” Evan shrugged.

 

“I just find it weird that you find it likable.”

“How so?”

“Just seems a little morbid. Considering the condition I was in when I gave it to you.” 

 

Evan had to admit that was fair. He smiles, resisting a chuckle, and lets those words sink in. There's a comfortable silence taking its place and for once he feels like he doesn't really mind it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ; /° ~ °)/ •*·°•·*°


	10. I Get It. I know.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slow Car Ride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Five god damn hours.” Connor shook his head and glanced down at the message notification that interrupted the GPS on his phone.

 

Evan gave a small nod instead of a reply. He rose the recyclable plastic cup to his lips and let it hover. Just to take in the nauseatingly sweet scent of the hot beverage. It was _too_ sweet for his liking. He had taken little over two sips before deciding that one more could kill him.

 

There was a coffeehouse neighboring the gas station Connor had decided to stop at a few hours back. Evan somehow worked up the courage to ask — vaguely imply — that he could, maybe, perhaps have been craving a hot chocolate.

The shop was closed but the manager and a few workers were still loitering. It took a few minutes, a few words and a few bucks before they begrudgingly agreed take his order.

 

And they got it wrong, despite Connor paying extra. Evan didn’t have it in him to vocalize just how unbearable the drink was. For starters it wasn’t even hot chocolate it was coffee. Friggin’ coffee. Not to sound picky but there was no way, in no world or universe the distinct taste would ever appeal to him.

 

High in both caffeine and sugar, a lot more than necessary, might he add. The hot beverage was one of the most disgusting things he had ever had the displeasure to consume. It was. Beyond word comprehension. Awful.

 

Not wanting to seem like an ungrateful, unappreciative prick, Evan didn’t say anything. But he couldn’t shake the guilt of not finishing the drink and wasting money. He already did that for a living. It didn’t make sense to burn a hole in Connor’s pocket just because his were empty. No matter how bad the drink might have tasted he now felt obligated to finish it.

 

They had been sitting in a mostly comfortable silence for about a half an hour now. With only the sound of a dispassionate, computerized voice chirping out directions from time to time to break it. Like ‘take a right turn here,’ and ‘no, you stupid-idiot, you missed the turn! Now I have to recalculate the quickest route to fix this.’ The latter surely went unsaid but it was the silence that arouse the idea. If the AI could swear it would probably tell Connor to _slow the fuck down_ so maybe then they wouldn’t be missing so many turns. 

 

 

“What time is it?” Connor asked as the car began to decelerate. Another turn was coming up and he seemed somewhat determined not to miss it. 

 

Despite having said, roughly forty minutes ago, something like: _“—I have somewhere to be in a couple’ve hours. I can’t afford to slow down—”_ Connor wasn’t making any visible attempt to get to their destination quickly. In fact if they had been traveling at a normal speed, they would have been a lot closer to it. If Evan didn’t know better he would think Connor was purposely stalling.

But that was a stupid thought. The lack of sleep talking. Or rather, too much sleep talking. _No one would want to be stuck in a car with you for five hours_ , Evan’s mind snarled.

 

“Its um…” Evan turned his attention away from the drink nestled in his lap. His eyes flickering over to Connor’s phone which was propped up on the armrest between them.

What a boring way to start up another conversation. The last had ended with Evan insisting he didn’t have some kind of blood fetish. Connor wasn’t convinced but he didn’t press on for answers and so silence ensued. “…one...tw—uh, 1:12.” 

 

“And how long until we get to your place?” That question came quick, almost automatic. Evan pushed away his suspicion of another inappropriate topic arising.

 

“It still says ‘abou— approximately 3 hours’,” Evan replied with another glance towards the screen.

“Okay, cool.”

 

“ _Cool?_ ” Evan tilted the cup of coffee to the side, feeling the liquid shift in response and rock within its containment. He wasn’t sure how he intended that word to come out. His mind still jabbing him with sardonic remarks. Piling that on with the list of ever-growing what if’s bubbling in the back of his consciousness. 

“Do people not say _cool_ anymore?” Connor laughed dryly and grabbed his cup from the holster between them. “What a sad world we live in.” He took a sip, frowned and drove with one hand. “This is cold, is yours?”

 

Evan had been in the midst of trying to explain that Connor misunderstood him, “no” he answered without checking. “—but um, I meant. Like, why would you want, what’s good about,” he had no idea where he was going with the previous sentences. “What’s so cool about being stuck in a car with me?”

 

Connor spared him a glance and took a long sip of his coffee before bothering to answer that. His eyes locked on the road as he took a moment to think the question over.

 

“You’re good—”

“Good?” Evan abruptly cut him off.

“Shh,” Connor rose a finger to his lips, hand still clasped around the cup. “Let me finish.” Evan couldn’t help but notice the chipping, pastel paint that decorated his nails. They were a soft pink, green, blue and yellow. He smiled and muttered out an apology.

 

“You’re good at making conversation." Connor said then quickly corrected himself. "No actually. You're not, like at all." He chuckles mostly to himself and brushes away a few pieces of his hair. "But it's kind of...endearing?" There's a pause as he ghosts over his own words and with a shy smile, nods in agreement with himself. "Yeah, I like that. How hard you're trying, and I like your voice.”

Evan could feel the color in his cheeks. He raced to return the compliment. “Same, I mean, yeah, no- not like, my voice but…yours. I l-like your voice too.”

 

“Mm, my voice is pretty shit.” Connor took another sip of his coffee. His words were bitter with a distinct kind of realness that made Evan feel like Connor was truly convinced of that. That his voice wasn’t worthy of being heard. 

 

He furrowed his brow. “Who told you that?”

 

There was a long string of silence. Evan pulled his attention away from his coffee cup and diverted it towards Connor. Wondering if he was going to get a reply to that question. He wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t, but that couldn’t stop him from looking for a trace of hope on the taller’s features. 

 

To his surprise, Connor looked…uncomfortable. As if Evan had somehow struck a delicate nerve his eyes glossed over. Dark with a burden too terrible to name. His lips were pressed into a thin line. Close to a frown, far from a smile.

 

“Connor?” Evan said quietly.

Connor glanced at him and hummed, “hm?” The pitiful look only growing harder to see.

 

“Are you okay?” Evan tried to keep his voice gentle. Mimicking the tone his mother used with him whenever she knew something was up. Because every time he was at his lowest she somehow just _knew_. She could tell and she could pick him up from off the ground when he needed it the most. 

Insane how one moment your talking, smiling and spewing out sweet words. And then the next you’re holding back tears. 

 

_Was it something that I said?_

Some thing was nagging at Evan’s mind. Whispering to him ideas. He had a hunch, a tiny feeling, that Connor didn’t have someone who could pick him up from off of the ground. 

_Or was it something that someone else had said…?_

 

 

“I’m fine.” Connor shrugged away the obvious tears forming in the corners of his eyes. 

 

_I’m fine,_ Evan’s mind echoed, _one of the most notorious cries for help._ He knew it all too well. Nobody ever said that they were fine when they were actually fine. It was practically code word for ‘help me, I might do something stupid and I need a hug.’

 

“Are you?” Evan pressed.

 

A pause.

 

“Y-yeah.” Connor’s voice trembled so he cleared his throat and spoke with a dangerously convincing amount of confidence. “Why wouldn’t I be?” If he was lying then he must have been very good at it.

 

“I don’t know.” Evan found himself mumbling but he could tell Connor could make out his words just fine. “Not unless you tell me.” He added.

 

“I…” Connor trailed off from his sentence before returning. “I don’t owe you an explanation. Its not even any of your business, why the hell do you care?”

 

Evan recognized the defensive note in his voice. That meant he was getting somewhere. Well, hopefully. He grabbed the best answer he could think of off the top of his head. A bit desperate to keep the ball rolling. His interest was piqued now.

 

“Its easier to talk to people, I mean, not all the time. I know.” What he didn’t know was where he was going with all this, "but its better to get things off your chest and not, bottle them up. Stuffing all the negative things away in a closet won’t exactly make it better.” Speaking the truth, from experience. Trying to give the truth to get the truth seemed like the best way to do it.

 

You can spend all day lying to everyone else but by the end of it, the one person you will continuously fail to convince, is you. You can’t lie to yourself. Its impossible. Evan spent too many days trying to deny the truth. Refused to accept the way things were going to fall into place like puzzle pieces. Snapping together to create a bridge to the other side. A land of nothing but sickening tranquility. White, gray and black. With a mixture of everything and nothing in between. He was going to die and forget everyone and everything he had ever had or known. Again. Eventually, he would just go back to being nothing for the rest of eternity. Floating in a blank space trying to grasp onto the gaps of his past.

 

“Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean its not there.” Evan paused to swallow down the faint lump forming in his throat. _Keep it together,_ his mind never missed a chance to scold him. _You’re supposed to be helping him, not yourself. Quit getting so emotional, this isn’t about you._ “And before you know it when you’re going to shove another problem you don’t want to deal with into the closet; everything’s going to spill out and tackle you to the ground. The weight of everything, its... overwhelming. A-and…you feel like you can’t breath because its all there. Forcing you down..like, its crushing you…and you feel like you’re…”

 

“Suffocating?” Connor finished for him once both of them realized there was no way Evan could complete the sentence. 

 

“Y—” Evan tensed as his voice cracked. Where had all this emotion been when he was walking through the forest, seconds from being stabbed? Or when Connor had thrown a laptop at him? Now, all of the sudden, he blurts out a few words and it feels like the end of the world. 

 

He choked down all that he could and shook his head in an affirmative manner. Unable to will his voice to work before he knew it wasn’t going to sound like a rubber duck on helium. 

 

“I used to know that feeling.” Connor dragged out the ‘i’, as if he wasn’t sure of how to proceed after it.

Evan quirked a brow and Connor continued in a voice quieter than what he began with.

 

“Its different now.” He sat down his cup. Placed it back in its holster and met Evan’s gaze for half a second, if not longer, before diverting his focus to the road. The silence threatened to creep back in. Frustration followed. Evan couldn’t help but feel what he put in wasn’t worth what he was getting out. 

 

_Is that it? Its just ‘its different now.’ Are you kidding me?_

 

“Different…in a good way?” Evan refrained from speaking his mind. It wasn’t like his opinion mattered anyway. He had no right to be upset with Connor. Not even just a little. This was his fault. He was angry because of something _he_ had done. Nobody to blame but himself. 

Connor scoffed, “different in the worst way.” 

 

Another pause.

 

“You wouldn’t understand.” He added.

“How can you be so sure of that?” Evan inquired. He instinctively rose his coffee cup to his lips to take a sip and ease his nerves. But the scent of it snapped him back to his senses. He caught himself before he could let the drink taint his tongue. It would only make him more on edge.

 

“Because. I can tell just by the way you act, the way you talk." Connor began with his confidence withering away by the second. "You don’t have the slightest clue what it feels like to feel _nothing_. To feel devoid of every ounce of emotion all at once and not know what the fuck is wrong with you. To want to cry and not be able to shed a single tear. Its fucking hell and you wouldn’t understand it. Hah, I don’t even want you to. Nobody deserves the shit I have to go through on a daily basis. Well, no one but me,” He let out a bitter laugh, almost akin to that of a sob. But the tears weren’t in his eyes and there was a dark haze around his chocolate brown irises. “obviously I must have done something awful to deserve this. Fuck, why am I even telling you this?”

 

The question didn’t feel like it was being pointed towards Evan and he was hesitant to answer. He felt, guilty, somehow. A pressure was being applied onto his back. Slowly forcing him down until he would eventually collapse under the weight. While a part of him knew that whatever Connor was going through was far from his fault, the blame had to go somewhere, right? _Useless,_ His mind piped up. If not feel, the least he could be able to do was say something encouraging, right? Something that would help and be of use. 

 

But no. Evan didn’t know what to say. He didn't know what it felt like to feel nothing. Not in the way Connor had depicted it. He knew what struggle was. He knew the strain of drowning in one’s own thoughts. He knew what it felt like to suffocate on something to big for him to chew. But nothing…? The only way he could relate to that was by reverting back to the truth. The secret of their pitiful existence. The nothing that they truly were. Just a bunch of dead people reliving their past through rotting eyes…

 

There was no way he could tell Connor that. It would only dog pile onto whatever he as moving through. So Evan bit his tongue until it bled. And bit it a little harder just for pain’s sake.


	11. Just Breathe.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Extended car-ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is...so very fucking late-- I don't have an excuse just take my sh*t and leave.

 

 

 

 

 

A faint tension stirred somewhere within the car and it hung heavy as a predatory silence threatened to creep. Well, granted that it was already there, _it crept closer._ Now it was settling in for the night like an unwanted house guest too annoying to keep but far too pitiful to disregard. 

It was making a home now. A place where it could frequent and feel safe. The silence was nestling in and preparing to get comfortable, furthermore ingraining its presence into the car. 

It was too late to expel it now. The opportunity was missed. Slipped through his hands like water, always finding a way through his fingers.

This helplessness put Evan on edge and there were buckets worth of things — _Buckets worth_ of things _—_ that put Evan on edge without necessarily making him feel endangered. 

‘Buckets’ could be a slight understatement, however, one thing was for certain. Even with all the other contestants making his senseless surges of anxiety prickle, silence still took the cake.   

Silence, ironically said something. It _meant_ something. One of two things, more often than not. One, there’s nothing to say or two, there’s something that needs to be said but it's too difficult to talk about. Right at this moment the latter was of Evan’s immediate concern.

Something about this silence unnerved him, pushing him further closer to that precipitous cliff-ledge in his mind. It was quiet to the point where he dare say it was devoid of all sound. It was still. Yes, everything was moving but the moment in itself was completely still.

 

Now all he had to do was figure out how to make that stop. Right now.

 

Evan knew there was no remaining hope for conversation unless he took initiative. Even then he had a gut feeling that Connor, given Evan spoke too late or too soon, wouldn’t be up for conversation. Maybe he didn’t have the energy to speak, they had been driving in this silence for a while.

Evan managed to block out the sound of the car engine. In hindsight it was an idiotic course of action. It was like he had a remote and lowered the volume until the engine growl became quiet enough to ignore all together.

 

Or he just pressed ‘mute.’

 

Evan hated the quiet. He had enough of it in his life. Moments of silence should have been reserved for the dead not the upcoming death of his social life. Why in the holy hell would he subject himself to silence if he didn’t like it? Where did his own brain get off on terrifying him? 

Even while being aware that he was tuning out the car engine he still couldn’t hear it. This momentarily led him to believe that there was no sound coming from the car engine to begin with. His brain was just too accustomed to the grumbling and made it up for the sake of its formality.

That didn’t make sense though, Evan ended up blocking out the sound anyway so why would his consciousness go through the trouble of creating it?

If not his brain mimicking the sound of the car engine for comfort purposes, then perhaps the acknowledgement wasn’t his own. Or in more specific wording, his _present_ thoughts. It could have been from his future self reflecting back on this moment.

 

He — his future self — was probably thinking, _damn, that was awkward and quiet and I kind of wish I never stepped foot into that car._ Yeah, that sounded about right.

Make no mistake, looking into the future and listening to his future thoughts were two different things. The former required a lot more focus, energy and consent. The three of which improved its accuracy while the latter, well, it didn’t require half not as much. It was undependable and a vast majority of the time he wasn’t trying to listen to it.

 

Knowing the future changed the future and Evan didn’t like change. 

 

He couldn’t stand change half the time. His brain would go the extra mile to ensure that everything remained the same. Even, or especially in the little things like a car engine’s growl. 

When something changed or something was missing it meant danger. Some sort of obstacle was headed his way and his brain was doing all it could to provide some sort of calm before the storm hit. 

 

 

It wasn’t working.

 

 

As they drove past house upon house, some more familiar than others, that disquieted feeling grew.

In spite of himself he had taken a few more sips of the gross coffee. Yeah, like that would ease his nerves. It tasted just about as bad as he felt. The amount of sugar put into it was inhumane. He was practically sipping on straight diabetes. _Who in their right mind would give this to another person and actually expect them to drink it?_

On top of it was that distinct, underlying (as it was significantly deluded by the asinine amount of sugar) bitterness that he never was very fond of.  

Coffee had a knack for making him rush through his words. His heart rate would begin to increase by the second and he would forget to breathe. He would forget to think. 

 

His sentences were rash and rarely made sense. Most of it ended up coming out as an endless whirlwind of words with a bunch of ‘Um’s,' ‘Err’s’ and ‘You know’s’ in between them. It was a spiral of redundant speech that not even Evan himself could find the patience or kindness to sit through. 

But, uh on the brighter side, half —if not all — of the things he wanted to say went unspoken. Hushed out. Silenced. His thoughts were always a lot louder than his voice and it just seemed polite to keep the yelling to himself. 

It’s not like anything he ever said held any value. They were insignificant, his words, himself. To some extent he saved a life or two, but that was about it and _about it_ was not much.

In all actuality everything was pointless. Nothing he would say to Connor or anyone for that matter, was ever going to make a significant difference. At the end of the day, everyone dies. He couldn’t stop death. Nothing he did could ever, permanently, stop death.

 

His efforts weren’t ever enough.

 

Wasted. He was wasting air that someone else could be breathing. He wasn’t enough. 

 

Himself, his best friend and worst enemy.

 

 

The feeling of uselessness wasn’t a very pleasant one. But it was familiar and with it’s familiarity there came a morbid sort of comfort. 

He was used to it, really. Accustomed and quite prepared for that little part of his brain that took up any opportunity it could to bring him down. Drag him into the depths of his own mind. Submerge him in the sense of drowning on all those nasty possibilities. _This could happen, it won’t happen, but it could happen._ It was an endless loop of what if’s he knew weren’t possible but plausible all the same. 

 

 

The air felt painfully thick when he breathed in and the taste of blood clung to the back of his throat. If only he could open his mouth and speak. Replace the blood with words, trade the lump in his throat for sound. Maybe then the silence would stop suffocating him.

 

 

_Say something._

 

But what could he say? 'I’m sorry you feel nothing, and I’m sorry that I don’t know how to fix you.’ 

_Yeah,_ his mind would snap, _that will definitely make him feel better._

Another less than comforting thought sidled forth, _Just spew out so many apologies that it floods the car and you both drown in your own plaintiveness._ Death was always a short-cut solution. Permanent but quite effective. _That’ll work._ It always would, wouldn’t it? Dying. A simple answer to the most complicated question in existence. 

Literally, just stop existing. _At least then you wont be breathing, right?_

_But what about Connor?_ The kinder part of his brain interjects. Oh yes, the angel on his right shoulder. The one that cared way too fucking much. _If you die, that’s what you become. Nothing…_

_You’ll be dead,_ his mind reassured, _you can’t care if you’re dead._

It was a double edged sword. Evan wanted to care, he really did. But he also didn’t want to care to the point where it would start to hurt which he also, frequently, did. If he died he wouldn’t care at all. He wouldn’t anything, at all.

 

 

Was that the same thing? Feeling nothing and being nothing? 

 

_Surely not…_

 

Feeling nothing was still feeling something, right? It couldn’t just be nothing. There had to be some emotion, if not just a tiny speckle of it. An illusion that mimicked nothing but was actually something. 

Being nothing meant… Nothing. Nada, it’s just blank. You might be lucky enough to remember the emotions but you don’t feel them, not really. You can’t grasp onto that sense of happiness or sadness — disgust, anger, joy, — none of that. It isn’t there anymore. It leaves a gap in where it was supposed to be. One that makes it apparent there was once something there; one that keeps the memory breathing. 

But if that’s what Connor meant by feeling nothing, just having the bittersweet memory of the feelings that made people human. Then he might be better off dead.

 

_Don’t tell him THAT._

 

Evan grimaced at the thought. Of course he wasn’t going to tell him that.

_Think of something else…_

 

_Let’s review today, huh?_ That snarky part of his brain sneered. 

_Please no,_ another part of him thought. However, his cynical side was on a roll and it couldn’t be stopped. It couldn’t be ignored. After all, it was right there, just waiting to push the closet full of things Evan much rather forget into the front of his mind. It had been waiting for too long for a quiet moment like this. For him to be weak and defenseless.

 

The perfect time to pounce.

 

Everything came crashing down.

 

 

_You embarrass yourself in every class. What else is new? Then can’t even open your locker, what are you, slow? What idiot can’t open their locker. You're fifteen years old. What the hell?_

_Also, just incase you forgot… your bag is completely destroyed. And everything in it by the way. What will you tell the teachers? “Oh, uh, you see. A portal ripped open and obliterated all the paper requirements,” ?. That’s money you just ripped to shreds._

_And then what…You save a random, cut up stranger from death. Kudos, Evan. Not! Cause didn’t he say ‘fuck you for that?’ Great. Just spectacular! Leave it to you to save someone who doesn’t want to be alive._

_Jesus Christ, you cant do anything right you sad, sad son of a bitch. You can’t even insult yourself correctly. Because, no, God no. Heidi isn’t a bitch. How could you even begin think that? She’s the only thing good left in this world and you call her a bitch, what the hell is wrong with you? You ungrateful brat. You’re a fucking waste of life. She must be so worried over garbage like you. You stress her out. Stupid asshole. Could you imagine the price of your funeral? Inconsiderate prick. She’d lose the house, she’d lose her mind. Taking the life of her own child away from her, how’ve you got the audacity to do something like that to your own mother?_  

Evan managed to force his mental conversation to a close. He resurfaced from the tidal waves that threatened to pull him under and take him to sea. In all honestly, he would have let them if the situation had been different, because at least, once at sea, he could drown.  

Not that drowning was a good thing. It certainly was less than ideal. He didn’t want to drown, no not in the slightest. However, after days and days of fighting each persistent, ever worsening wave, the water seemed to drag his wash away his will to fight. Each splash like a new, better reason for him to give up and just accept that eventually he would drown anyway no matter how hard he fought.

 

Not today.

 

Because today he wasn’t alone.

 

And it wasn’t helping him in any way, shape or form to be stuck scolding himself for all the flaws he wished he could fix.

 

 

The night was only becoming shorter. The sky didn’t tell time the way it could in the summer, it was in a perpetual state, tinted into darkness. There was a dreary undertone that accompanied the way the clock claimed the time to be _3:21 AM_ ; the lack of light could have fooled anyone into thinking it had just struck twelve. The clouds drifted over the sky and concealed the night’s breathtaking decor. 

It made Evan wonder when it was, the last time he had seen the stars and all their bright, burning glory.

They always made him sad, the stars. Which is why he stopped bothering to look up at the sky at night. After coming to hear that they were all already dead, they lost the charming part of them that piqued Evan’s interest. He would give anything to regain that oblivious peace of mind that only children got to experience nowadays. 

It was fun while it lasted, though Evan had never gotten the chance to truly appreciate it before it had been long gone. He still carried the foggy bits and pieces of his childhood memories with him. Frankly, they were one of the only things left in his life that still held color. 

Even if their saturation was too, fading. It was better than everything else, dull and tinting into shades of grayish-blue. The kind that’s easy on the eyes but still unwelcoming and edgy. The time that takes some getting used to but once you are, no other color seems to exist. Once it sinks in there’s no way to get rid of it, like an ugly stain on a carpet. You have to catch it early before the damage really sets. Before it spreads.

Eventually you stop trying to rid of the stain all together. You stop fighting it and learn to accept the ugly stain for what it is. For a mistake that you’ve made.

 

_It’s your fault you're like this,_ Evan’s mind would say.

 

And if it were gone, that stain you’ve spent so much time getting used to, its absence would leave a hole. A hole that’s deafening and awkward. A hole that takes a whole lot more getting used to.

Evan missed that time in his life where he believed people smiled because they wanted to. A time where there were no obligations, no late nights spent trembling, alone — so _fucking_ alone — in a corner and certainly no weeks wasted wishing he was anything but awake. 

And all of this because there was a point and time where he was actually excited for the future, ecstatic even. _All of this_ because instead of going to Elementary school every day like a good, normal kid he flunked and skipped days to peer into that same future he used to be so excited about.

Insane, how a little bit of curiosity could be so dangerous. But he supposed it didn’t just go and kill the cat for fun, now did it?

He bet the cat killed itself, after learning what it did. It couldn’t take it, what it had learned. What couldn’t be forgotten.

It was his curiosity that coaxed him into taking a bite out of the type of thing only grownups are supposed to taste. A nice, clean and savory slice of the truth.

 

He still vividly recalled the dream he had when he was seven. A good two weeks before his dad was due to pack his things into a truck.

 

~

_“Evan, it’s time for school.” His mother’s hand found a place on his shoulder. She shook him gently._

_Evan grumbled and nestled further into his bed, cocooning himself in the blankets that he was soon pulling over his head. He was groggy from the the amount of power his body exerted to manifest the vision he had. His body was heavy. Not in a giant-boulder-crushing-him sort of way or anything. But more so like he was the boulder, weighing down the bed. He was comfortably wedged between his mattress and blankets and showed no signs of moving._

_Didn’t help that the bed was so warm and the room was a little cold. After what happened to Ms. G, school felt more like a chore rather a place where he could go say ‘hi’ to his friends._

_He didn’t want to go, he couldn’t get the numbers to go away. And if the numbers didn’t have to go then neither should he._

_“C’mon hon, you’re already running thirty minutes late.” Heidi hummed out as she tried peeling away the blankets. It didn’t work._

_The night before, Evan made sure to swaddle and tuck the blankets around his body as best as he could. He was so sure that if he tried hard enough, Heidi would let him stay home. Evan didn’t know it yet but the little feeling of certainty in his gut was his six sense._

_He was pretty dead-set on missing today in turn for exploring through the cool new pictures in his head. At the time, that’s all they were to him. Little dreams and snippets, harmless dreams and snippets._

_Seeing as nothing else was working, Heidi sighed. “You know your dad doesn’t like it when you sleep in.” She said in an almost matter-of-fact tone. Although her voice was still soft and gentle those words were nothing but. Ever since May 31, the day of Ms. Garnet’s death, Evan started to get migraines when she spoke too loudly in the early mornings. Evan’s dad however, was not afraid to raise his voice._

_“Oh!” Evan shot upright, the foggy memory of his dream resurfacing. He shrieked in alarm when the blankets around him began to unravel. He quickly pulls himself into a ball, hugging the covers between his chest and legs._

_Evan rested his chin on his blanket covered knees. “Guess what!” He peeked out from behind the messy spiral of blankets to see his mom settling down at the foot of his bed._

_He had yet to encounter his fear of eye contact, which was a different memory for another time._

_“What is it, hun?” Heidi inquired, vaguely gesturing for him to lower his voice. She shifted closer and the white sheets on the small mattress crinkled beneath her weight._

_“I saw daddy in my dream!” Evan exclaimed in a hushed sort of shout. His high pitched voice rising from the sheer amount of enthusiasm radiating off of his form._

 

_“Oh?”_

 

_“Mhm!” He vigorously shakes his head and needs no prompts to continue. Unaware of the six-foot-deep grave he’s digging for his father, relationship wise._  

_Evan wiggles out of the blankets to give his hands room to move, cold long forgotten._

_As a kid he used a lot of gesticulations to get his point across and almost never stopped talking. “He and Jared’s dad went to adult-place_ (Which Evan realized, in hindsight, is actually called a bar.) _and then daddy dropped jared’s dad off and gave him money. I think it was for his birthday, oh! We should call Jared’s dad and tell him Happy birthday like when we did for grandma—”_

_“Evan.” Heidi gently sighed, subtly reminding him that he was getting off track. He did this quite often. Babbled and rambled his way off the side of a cliff. Falling, was the patience of anyone who had the misfortune to be stuck listening._

_“But caaaan we? Pretty please? He didn’t look so happy when daddy gave him money so maybe if we call him he will smile!” Evan chirped brightly. His bubbly bright eyes too innocuous to say no too._

_“Oh, alright, but only after you’ve told me all about your dream.” Heidi compromised._

_Evan’s eyes grew impossibly brighter as a grin spread across his face. He adored getting his way but then again, who didn’t?_

_“Can we call him now?” Evan asked, pretending to not have heard anything after Heidi’s affirmative._

_“After you tell me about your dream.” Heidi replied. “Then we’ll see.”_

 

_Evan didn’t push it and jumped straight back into his story. “Well, then…and then he uh— drove away! He drove and went to this big-big-big house,” he waves his arms around for emphasis, not taking so much as a break to breathe now that he’s gotten started. “and theeeen a really pretty lady with red hair and a blue dress — you know, just like the one daddy bought you. The one that has with the pretty, white flowers on the bottom — (Heidi gave him patient look) Oh right. A, uh lady came out of the house and her belly was really, really big. I mean it was reeaaaaally big, but not in a bad way, it was big like the house! (Heidi fixed his with another look, one he misinterprets) Well, you know… It wasn’t AS big as the house but it was still really big and daddy said that there were TWO boys called ‘twins' in the lady’s belly but I don’t know how they got there—”_

_“Woah, woah, Evan honey, slow down…” Heidi rose her hands out in front of her and gestured for Evan to relax. Her eyes were wide as she tried to process his excited babble. She took Evan’s hands into her own to keep them still, but looking back it was the other way around. Her palms were cold and shaking, and she was nervously chewing at her lower lip. Seven year old Evan didn’t notice and his signature toothy smile didn’t waver. Reenergized, he was bouncing while Heidi tried to search for her words._

_“Evan.” Heidi said after a moment, serious tone catching him off guard. A flush of panic swam through him. Immediately he assumed he was in trouble and tore his hands away from Heidi’s on impulse._  

_“Evan, no, I’m not angry.” Heidi tried to reassure, it did very little to help. She only used that tone for when he was in trouble. “I promise that I’m not.” She said a little softer. Evan cautiously nodded._

_Heidi began again once she felt that Evan’s worries had subsided. At first she proceeded with a cautious tone, as if he were an animal that was easily spooked, and asked him to confirm without a doubt what he saw. When Evan provided that confirmation she then asked, “what else did daddy do in your dream?” And pulled the blankets around her. Evan shrugged and tried to remember. He pulled his best thinking face as he fiddled with the corners of his superman t-shirt._

_“Uhh…he said..” Evan narrowed his eyes and stared at something invisible on the ceiling. “Well, the lady said that the twins were going to ‘be born’—” the term wasforeign on his tongue. “—and that she was due for something next week and daddy said that he would go see her next week and he would have everything ready next-next week and THEN (a little gasp for air) he said that he would talk to you and me and try and see if he could take me to…see the…Mommy?” He began to trail off as soon as he noticed the distraught look on Heidi’s face._

 

_She was pale now. So terribly pale._

 

_“What’s wrong, mommy?” Evan only just saw the tears dripping from her eyes. The very little, cheap make-up that she wore began to streak dark lines across her once rosy cheeks._

_“Nothing, sweetie. Nothing is wrong…” Heidi forced a smile. She pulled her hands across her eyes to force away the tears, only succeeding in smearing her make-up further. Heidi slid from off of his bed and began to make her way out of his room._

_Evan followed in hasty suit of her. “Where are you going?” He inquired in confusion and a slight bit of worry. He hadn’t finished his story, yet._

_“I’m just going to uh…I’m going to get a piece of paper.” Heidi strained to say as she made her way downstairs, “stay up there. You don’t have to go to school today.”_

_Evan’s eyes lit up brightly. Any remaining concern or nervousness washing away, “Really, you promise?” He said from the top of the staircase as Heidi ascended down. The hardwood floor was cold beneath his bare feet and for a moment he wished he wore socks._

_Instead, Evan settled for stepping on his toes and bouncing from one foot to the other to keep the cold away. He listened for Heidi’s muffled but affirmative reply before moving down the stairs. This way she couldn’t threaten to send him to school anyway after promising._

 

_The Hansens always kept their promises._

 

_“Daddy’s not here?” Evan poked his head around the corner of the wall that was adjacent to the stairs. He saw his mother moving towards the kitchen to retrieve her paper, there, the smell of pancakes infiltrated his nose in a pleasant way._

_“No…” Heidi ripped at a napkin and scurried out of the kitchen. “He’s…he went to the adult-place with Jared’s dad.” She explained while fishing about for a pen._

_“Just like in my dream!” Evan gasped._  

_“Yep, just like in your dream.” Heidi spoke with a voice too enthusiastic for the given situation, she glances over her shoulder to Evan, smiles something too sweet for the given situation._

 

_She’s trying so hard to hide the weight of the situation. She knows it would just crush something, /someone/_ _as small as Evan._

 

 

 

Evan stole a glance at Connor just in time to catch him looking away. He had to will himself to think nothing of the gesture since he was technically doing the exact same. 

There was a lot more than a little staring to be worried about. Like the smile that dare itch it’s way onto his lips because _noooo staring is really fucking creepy_. Especially when it’s a stranger. A person that Evan didn’t know. Staring and sparing occasional but consistent glances his way.

 

But.

 

It didn’t feel that way with Connor.

He understood how cliché that sounded, just hearing himself, he _knew_ how cheesy it must have been to think that there was something there. Something between them that couldn’t be disregarded. 

Evan tried to reason with himself — or against himself — that he hadn’t felt this way around someone in a very long time. In fact he hadn’t felt this way around anyone, ever. Scratch that too, he had never felt quite this way at all.

 

‘This way’ meaning ‘not nervous’ which only nicked the surface of what he was feeling.

 

He felt like he was being reunited with an old friend, or at least that’s what he assumed it would feel like. Evan didn’t have friends anymore. Not real ones, at least. But if he tried hard enough and put his imagination and years of watching television to work, he could rightly assume that this is what it would feel like.

Uncharacteristically, Evan felt very safe and calm and at the same time uneasy because, well, this wasn't a normal occurrence.

Not normal things weren’t good things because not-normal meant unusual which meant different and different meant change and why would he want to do that? 

 

Why would he want to suddenly interact with someone? 

 

Why would he risk making a complete fool out of himself just because he was lonely? 

 

Why would he threaten what little remaining dignity he had left by letting someone in? 

 

Why shed the shell he spent eight years building? 

 

Why wasn’t he afraid of Connor? Why was Connor different? Why would he go out of his way to save his own life even though he barely wanted to live it?

 

He wanted to believe that there was more to this.

That it wasn’t just because he found Connor attractive or because he was tall and unpredictable. There was probably, definitely something more. And it damn sure wasn’t healthy.

Because if there was something that _really_ put Evan on edge it was attractive, tall or unpredictable people. 

 

Tall, he could deal with. The whole looking-up thing was second nature to him. With self-esteem as low as his, the only thing he could ever do was look up to other people. Both physically and metaphorically — but arguably more metaphoric than physical — he was always looking up at people. Thinking that nobody could ever be more selfish, pathetic or as forgettable as him. 

 

_Don’t forget useless._

 

Attractive seemed a little self explanatory. When someone way too hot to possibly exist, let’s say (for example) Zoe, gets into a fifteen foot radius of him. Well, his brain decides to stop functioning.

Maybe it’s because someone as inferior as him could never imagine amounting to the likes of Zoe. And, digging deeper into the topic, it just might have been a defense mechanism. On the rare chance that his brain _does_ decide to check in for work and get all those neurons and their transmitters to function, they don’t do it right. 

 

_Oh, and garbage. You can’t forget garbage, a useless waste, trash._

 

 

With his luck the best he’ll get out in a conversation is a petrified squeak or a bunch of mostly unintelligible babble. He stuttered and mumbled, two very annoying things that nobody liked. Not even he liked it and he wasn’t anybody. He didn’t matter. 

He wasn’t mean enough subject a someone to such a painful, unfulfilling conversation with the likes of himself. And if they happened to strike up one with him the trembling, stuttering and blatant evasion of eye contact would surely convince them to never engage in such a painful, unfulfilling conversation, ever again.

The type of impression he left on most people was no impression at all. It could be considered some sort of miracle that people even acknowledged his existence in the first place.

_Maybe_ his six sense was trying to warn him (or remind him really) that the most he would ever get from a relationship of any kind was a few months of up and downs before full out desertion.

 

 

_On second thought. You actually might be worst than garbage. At least most garbage can be recycled. You’re like plastic. A stupid, non-recyclable plastic bag that’s helpful at first and then completely useless, thrown into a trashcan or ocean to create more problems than solutions…_

 

 

 

“Will you cut that shit out?” Connor snapped at him, right on cue. His mind had just begun to quiet down. 

At first Evan thought it might’ve been because he was staring so he promptly stopped and dipped his head, still quite uneasy. Only to realize, now that he was looking down, that Connor was probably referring to the incessant _flicking_ noise that he was creating by picking at the coffee cup’s lid. He stopped doing that too. 

Evan narrowed his eyes as if it would rid of the growing embarrassment bubbling behind them. He rubbed his hands against the black pair of jeans he had on, trying to push his mind elsewhere. Not a moment later, he began to tense up as a more unpleasant thought slithered into his head.

 

_Well if that isn’t creepy, I don’t know what is. How are you just noticing this? Are you okay with this? Did you ever stop to think about how you blacked out and woke up wearing random clothes? What happened to your old ones? Who used to own these new ones? And how the hell did you get into them? What else happened while you were unconscious?_

 

“S-sorry…” Evan said. He ignored the way his skin crawled with a sudden discomfort. He brought a slightly clenched hand up to his mouth, index finger hooking; and chewed at the corner of his already short nail. Trying to distract himself from himself.

 

_Stop that, it’s gross._

 

He frowned and pulled his hand away, ran his damp palms over the jeans one more time, you know… just to feel the fabric against them. Or something. To think there was an actual point in his life where he couldn’t care less about the outward image he presented to people. Much less a stranger.

 

Stranger…

 

 

 

 

Each house that whisked through his peripheral felt more unsettling than comforting. No matter how many times he had seen them before, something about today made them feel off-putting.

Evan turned his attention to the window in front of them. Dim streetlights lined the non existent sidewalks. Grass coated the corners of the concrete road, shiny and lined with shallow puddles from the brief storm. The lights casted strange shadows over the houses that stood far behind them. 

Somehow that, mixed with the faintly saturated, dawn-winter sky, made the rows of one story homes look depressing. The way the black windows carried nothing but forgotten memories behind their opaque panes. 

 

_It’s not the houses, is it?_

 

The thought made Evan squirm. He didn’t want to think about _it_. Knowing well that the more he paid attention to ‘ _it_ ’ the closer _it_ would get. But he couldn’t just forget that _it_ was there or turn a blind eye to it. 

The thought of ignoring _it_ only made _it_ more present. Like being aware of your own breathing, or need to blink, or being unable to sleep because you’re so focused on trying to sleep. This was no different. Now that _it_ had showed _it_ self, there was no covering _it_ back up.

He noticed a white fire hydrant settled not too far away from one of the brighter looking streetlights. The car seemed to slow to a steadier, slower pace all at once as the fire hydrant came into a detailed few. 

 

Something was wrong with it.

 

Evan wasn’t able to place it immediately and the longer he squinted, staring to see if what he was missing would appear, the slower the car moved. 

 

_Something_ is wrong with it.

 

 

He stared harder as if it would help, as if it would trigger some kind of missing piece and everything would click together like a puzzle. But of course nothing was ever that simple, not for him anyway. So as Evan inspected the chipping, non-existent paint on the colorless fire hydrant, things only seemed to get worse.

 

_Something_ _is wrong with it. Something_ _is wrong with it. Something_ _is wrong with it._ _Something_ _is wrong with it. Something_ _is wrong with it. Something_ _is wrong with it. Something_ _is wrong with it._

 

_What is wrong with it?_

 

_What was wrong?_

 

 

He stared.

 

 

_What was—?_

 

 

Was it blue or red. 

 

 

The question made things click together like a puzzle piece but it only left space for a bigger, more complicated puzzle.

He felt a weird sensation, akin to that of déjà vu, as they passed it on. It was followed, quickly, by a wave of detachment. The moment seeming much more like a memory than the present itself; and the present itself felt like it was being ripped away.

 

And then, just like that, _it_ became impossible to ignore. 

 

“Um…” He began, trying to break the silence before it got a chance to suffocate him. He was racing against an invisible clock, voice quiet as he searched for his words while he spoke them out loud. Connor glanced at Evan just to reassure him that he was being listened to.

Evan could still feel the fabrication that separated the realities. That’s what was wrong. To an extent he could see _It_ in all the houses that looked a little too dark. Or the empty spaces on the side of the road that looked like they could use more light. It distracted him for a very long moment, too long of one.

 

The clock was ticking loud behind his ears.

 

“Yes?” Connor inquired impatiently.

Evan felt obliged to answer quickly, “I-I um…I was wondering s-some…something..”

 

He felt an uncomfortable awareness. Knowing that he was forgetting something, and knowing exactly what he was forgetting. Yet still being unable to register the missing thing. It was so frustrating.

“Well…? What are you, pausing for dramatic effect or something? Are you trying to make me guess?” Connor says. Snaps? The small outburst failed to make Evan flinch but he did shrink in his seat and mutter out a barely comprehensible reply.

 

 

_What color was it?_

 

The question began to sprout like weeds growing in a tranquil garden, one after the other. Infecting everything around it in complete silence like a sickness.

 

_What color was it? What color was the fire hydrant?_

 

He could feel his skin tingle with a growing abhorrence. The ghost of a hand that was never there drew lines of goosebumps over his forearms and thighs. The very thought of never knowing what color it was made him uncomfortable. It didn’t sit right. He couldn’t not know, _he had to know_. Now. 

The need like colony of insects crawling beneath the first layer of skin and all he wanted to do was rip them out. An itch that could not be reached rippled throughout his forearms and it was physically draining to refrain from tearing his hands away from his lap to claw at the invisible intruders. To scratch and pick at his skin until he saw nothing but red. His body felt much more confining than it did before. Reminded him of a vessel with chains and restraints tied over it. 

 

Trapped.

 

 

_What color was it? What color was the…the thing, the…the fire hydrant?_

 

Connor muttered something incoherent under his breath. He sounded irritated, that much Evan could note before the taller’s feelings were forced aside. His mind a train seconds from derailing.  

_Ask him._

 

Evan opened his mouth to speak but it wasn’t before Connor beat him to it. Their words overlapping each other when they spoke. Neither voice loud enough to be heard above the other. By the time they both stopped talking nothing they had said managed to be registered. But Evan, having no remaining desire to listen to what Connor had to say, repeated himself.

 

“What color was it?”

 

“…What?” Connor gave him a confused look before furrowing his brow, “I told you to stop doing that.” 

 

Evan spilled out a half-hearted, absentminded and not entirely truthful apology, unaware that he had begun to pick at the coffee lid again. “What color was it?” He parrots himself once more.

“What color was what?” Before Connor had even finished his sentence, Evan was speaking again.

 

“The thing—” He began, his train of thought faltering for just a moment, “the…the…t-the thing…”

_What thing?_ His mind snapped in perfect sync with Connor.

 

“T-t-that thing…o-on the side of t-t-the road. The…fire thing, the f-fire hydrant!” Evan gasped as if he had found the cure to all diseases. He turned his body to face Connor. 

“What color was the fire hydrant?” Evan asked the question so quickly it didn’t even begin to resemble the English language.

“What fire hydrant?”

 

_What if there was no fire hydrant?_

 

“The… the one just we passed.”

“I didn’t see it.” Connor shrugged. His words felt concluding and his tone told Evan to shut up and drop the topic entirely.

 

Their eyes met again.

 

“I-I-I…I swear we passed one.” Evan had to pause and close his eyes because the way Connor was looking at him did not help his thought process. He knew he wasn’t making much sense. And he knew that his words and their pronunciation were becoming sloppier with every syllable, but he couldn’t stop. 

There was this compulsion. Something inside him was hollowing out every other thing. It was eradicating all other thought to make room for one goal. Moral and caution both thrown to the wind at once. Within a few seconds the hydrant was the only thing on his mind. And he felt like would rather _die_ than not find out its color.

It couldn’t have not existed. Otherwise he would be…He wouldn’t need to find it. And he needed to find the fire hydrant. He needed to know what color it was. Before it became just another thing he couldn’t remember.

 

“So, what? You want me to turn-the-fuck-around and—?” Connor’s grip on the steering wheel loosened ever so slightly.

_He thinks you’re joking._

 

Evan could tell he had the upper advantage but wasn’t in the right mindset to abuse it. Instead of trying to stake out a smooth path toward convincing Connor to double back around, he dove straight for the short cut. 

 

“Yes! Yes, do t-that…”

“Wait, are you fucking serious?” Connor was incredulous, Evan found his lingering propensity to care really wear itself out.

“Yes. Just put the car in reverse, or something.” Evan insisted. Somehow certain he was going to get his way before the end of their conversation.

“You’re dead fucking serious, holy shit.” Connor said and stared at him. Taking his attention away from the road occasionally just to maintain eye contact.

 

_Don’t make direct eye contact, it’s distracting._

 

_But his eyes are so pretty._

 

_He’s trying to distract you, Evan. Focus on the hydrant!_

 

 

There was nothing remotely extraordinary about them. Yet Evan couldn’t help but stare. Connor’s eyes, containing nothing that jumped out or looked noteworthy. They lacked that little something that could make them exceptional. There weren’t any crazy starburst patterns or wild colors or something out or the norm that Evan could point out. But it might have been their simplicity that drew him in. 

If not that, then maybe just the fact that they were brown. Just like his own. Bland, a little boring. A bit blank. No extra colors hidden in the irises, no deep currents of vividness that could enrapture him. And that was okay. Very okay.

_Stop drooling and fucking focus. Admiring his eyes won’t save you. It won’t make a difference and it certainly wont stop you from being afraid of holding eye contact with other people._

 

“Yes!… Why is that so difficult to believe?” Evan’s voice was less than steady as he forced his thoughts to quiet down. He smothered them until the internal argument became no more than a memory.

What was he trying to do again?

 

“Its a god damn fire hydrant.” Connor said.

 

_Right, that._

 

“And I-I…I need to know its color.” Evan replied.

“Why?” Connor looked at him.

 

_I…Because…shit—! I don’t know anymore._

 

“I just do! Okay? I really need to know.” He sputtered out.

Connor shrugged again and conjectured. “It was probably red.” 

“Red?” Evan echoed him.

 

“Yeah, probably red. Most are.” He said in a sort of monotone that let Evan know he wanted the subject to be dropped. Evan ignored this yet again.

“Probably…meaning maybe, meaning you don’t know for sure and I need to know for sure.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Evan could hear the odds being played out of his favor. The slight shift in tone, moving from pleasantly surprised to annoyed. Connor quit humoring him once he realized Evan wasn’t joking. “Is it really that important to you?”

“Please.” He implored, not knowing what else to say. He couldn’t demand that Connor turned the car around. Nor could he in any way forcefully convince him to. 

“We have less than twenty minutes left of this drive, I’m tired as fuck, and you want me to turn around for a fire hydrant?” Connor snapped.

“ _Please._ ” Evan said again. Making sure to add that small hint of desperation that could easily guilt trip anyone with a conscience into acquiescence. If he managed to sound pathetic enough, most people usually fell for it.

 

Evan’s father never had.

It always left a sting of guilt in his chest to deceive people. It was dishonest and slimy thing to do anyway. 

The car began to decelerate before easing to a jerky halt. The erratic movement stirring a long wave of discomfort in Evan’s stomach. It churned before twisting into a clever knot to keep everything still. Evan watched Connor, or rather the other way around, with a less than amused expression. The ghost of a smirk appearing on the taller’s sharp features as the car bolted into backwards movement. 

Typically, when cars move into reverse, they’re quite slow. That probably wasn’t all that true but in Evan’s mind it was fact. His ignorance was all but bliss and the abrupt shift in speed alone made the knot in his stomach come undone. It lurched into throat and he retched in response while another memory took his mind away from the hydrant.

The memory was less than fond. In fact it was one of worst things he could think of. Contributing well to the many reasons he was a five-star clusterfuck of a disaster. He had to be about ten, or eleven when Jared and his parents dragged him out to an amusement park. His mother was working at the time so he _had_ to stay with the Kleinmans. And since Six Flags was a prior commitment, he got snatched up in the horrible early birthday present.

 

To put the memory bluntly: Evan didn’t want to go on the wooden ride. Everyone wanted to go on the wooden ride. Evan didn’t want to be alone, and everyone was getting on the ride. Evan got on the ride and that ended just about as well as anyone would expect it to.

 

The memory would surely haunt him to the grave, along with the revolted stares of everyone who sat in the rows behind him.

 

 

 

“Is that it?” 

 

_Is what, what now?_

 

“Wha…?” Evan blinked away the torn up tatters of his no-longer-existing dignity. The memory still prodding his mind. 

“The hydrant. It's right there.” Connor said. Evan turned towards the passenger side window to look.

 

_There is no fire hydrant._

 

That deep sense of dread began to loom. “…What color is it?”

“What, are you fucking color blind?”

 

“No! I just, what color is it?” For a brief moment, Evan wondered what would’ve happen if he answered with an affirmative. Would Connor feel bad and apologize or would he make fun of him for it? Something tugged at Evan’s heart and told him it was definitely the former; and that he had, for sure, missed out on the satisfaction he could have derived from the apology. 

However it wasn’t long before the thought was being ripped away and torn to shreds. His mind curving faster than an unfaithful partner. Moving in an efficient loop, rounding straight back to the hydrant. And as the last remaining non-hydrant related thoughts had worn thin, frustration soon bubbled forth. 

_You got distracted. Idiot, you stupid idiot. You’re wasting time. Every second you spend doing unimportant shit, you’re making yourself more vulnerable. Worry about this first. Everything else can come later, it’s not going to go anywhere but the fire hydrant_ ** _will_** _disappear and you know it. You know it. You know it. You know it. You know_

 

“Its right there-” Connor said and was abruptly cut off in the same second.

“Okay, but what color is it?” Evan hissed as something flared within him. A burning sensation set his chest and hands on fire. Like a static sort of buzz that traveled through his palms and all the way up to his lungs.  

“Its right there.” Connor repeated himself.

 

_No it's not. It's not there. It’s gone, it’s your fault. You’re forgetting again. What’s next, huh? You’ll forget everything. Everything. Everyone. If you blink even once it will all go away. It's too late. It’s not there anymore. You lost your chance, you lost it. You forgot—_

 

His instinct were now telling him, _screaming_ at him to get answers. He needed to know and need to know now. The flames were spreading quick, creeping up towards his neck. His face burned with his growing exasperation. A shot of pain made his vision blur, it seared through his head and sparked more flames. Lines of fire streamed down his face as he frantically tried to blink away the haze around his eyes. 

“What color is it?!” Evan didn’t realize that he shouted the words until his thoughts had grown quiet again. Connor glared at him for a moment before his eyes softened. Evan saw his pupils dilate and it somehow doused the fire burning in his chest and replaced it with a still, calming feeling. A cold, but easing chill ran through his body. His stiff shoulders slacked in defeat. The battle between his six sense and his actual thoughts over. It didn’t feel like there were any victors, though. More of a stalemate of sorts. Something pyrrhic, he could have gone without the hydrant trying to run his proclivities into the ground.

 

He wanted to say that it wasn’t such a big deal and that he was getting riled up over nothing. He wished he could say it wasn’t the end of the world.

But in a way it kind of was.

 

That’s how it started. One thing went missing, then another and by the time it reached a couple more he wouldn’t be able to tell what was gone. Not unless someone brought it up. Which was unlikely. Then the realization dreams would become more frequent and lucid until they bordered on real. They stopped only occurring when he fell asleep. The blank space reality would tear into his and split it in two until one side was completely engulfed in nothing. Until he was completely engulfed in nothing… 

 

“Uh, red. It’s red.” 

 

“…” Evan wondered how many more times he could be pulled away from his thoughts before they decided to pull back. He brought his sore lip beneath his canine and chewed at it anxiously. His eyes darting back and forth over the freshly trimmed lawn just outside the window. He lingered over the way the dew drops on the grass glistened beneath the yellow streetlight. He searched for anything. A little tiny piece of him still hoping to find the hydrant. 

Finally, after a solid minute of skimming over the lawn his eyes caught an odd wrinkle in the grass. The weird fold and slight discoloration became more prominent after he singled his focus on it. It resembled a picture or piece of paper with a crease in it. And, to his immense relief, as he continued to stare a faint glimmer of red began to reappear. Along with the red his good sense came stumbling back. 

 

And the first thing he felt was jab of guilt. 

 

_You yelled at him. He’s going to hate you now. He probably already hates you, he’s going to kick you out. Just you wait, the second those twenty minutes are up he’ll shove you from his car. Stupid. How could you ever think for a second someone actually wanted to be your friend? He’s just driving you home because he feels bad. That’s the only reason you’re talking right now. Because you are one pitiful fuck. He knows how weird you are. Freaking out over nothing, literally. Way to go, Evan. You’ve scared off the only person who could tolerate you and your stupid stuttering._

 

“I’m so sorry, Oh my god—“

“Don’t be…” Connor’s words fell upon deaf ears and Evan couldn’t stop the river of apologies that was now flowing out of his mouth. Not even if he wanted to. He could hear the nervous tremble and hick-up in his own voice and prayed that the fire that had run down his face weren’t just tears. Though he had been anticipating it, that didn’t make it any less embarrassing. He was fifteen and crying over a fire hydrant. 

That was sad, just really sad. There was no other word that could capture how pathetic he and his very existence was and how stupidly difficult it was for him to formulate his scattered thoughts into sentences.

 

_God you’re so stupid. You stupid fucking idiot. Why can’t you just get your priorities straight for once? Would it be so hard to be normal for one god damn second? But leaving such an awful impression on someone is what you do best, isn’t it? You just can’t leave things alone. You were doing fine before the fire hydrant. You had something going and you ruin it with your stupid fears and your stupid power and you’re stupid, stupid, stupid—_

 

“—I didn’t mean to y-yell at you a-and, shit…I wasn’t thinking I shouldn’t have done that. I won’t do it again, I swear, I promise. I’m not usually like t-that, I…I..I—” 

 

_I can’t breathe._

 

He was speaking too quickly and the words were coming out like bullets being fired from a gun. The automatic type that only required squeezing the trigger. Right now, something was pressing down on that trigger and refusing to let go. Even when Evan found himself _gasping_ for air in the midst of his sentence he couldn’t stop the next wave of apologies. Each syllable raking claws against the side of his throat as his oxygen intake faltered with every word. 

_I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe._ _I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. Breathe, inhale— no stop! Hold it— stop talking— I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t think— breathe, focus — I can’t—_

 

“I said don’t be, “ Connor raised his voice to speak over Evan’s gibberish. “Jesus Christ.” 

 

Evan coughed into his elbow, the faint scent of the vanilla candles still clung to the sweater he was wearing.“I’m still sorry…” He said, instinctively expecting some kind of ridicule. 

“Why are you crying?”

“What— Oh…sorry.” Evan blinked in surprise and flinched. A few tears trickled down his face, leaving faint streaks along his flushed cheeks. He frowned and his lips pulled into a tight, thin line as he willed himself against letting anymore follow. 

The question alone pricked at his skin like butterfly needles. It was such a familiar question too and like a reopened wound it began to sting. He started to realize that the kid he was eight years ago was the same kid sitting in the passenger seat of Connor’s car. The same trusting and gullible kid that couldn’t tolerate the very thought of being alone.

 

_Crybaby._

 

Evan forced himself to exhale. Rendered helpless as another wave of memories came crashing back into his mental space. 

 

_“What kind of loser cries over a book?”_

 

_“Wow, what are you, a baby?”_

 

_“Stop acting like a little bitch, boys don’t cry.”_

 

_“I heard he started crying after killing a ladybug.”_

 

_“You’re almost fifteen, Evan. You can’t keep crying over stupid shit like this…”_

 

 

His breath was shaky and uneven. It was scarily possible that he had been crying for a lot longer than what he first thought. And now it was not only becoming a struggle to talk and breathe, but to think and channel his thoughts. Like liquids mixing to the point of inseparability. No longer able to pin point one from the other, he felt lost, drowning in wave after wave of uncertainty.  

The water was back and it was more ferocious then ever. Every gasp of air left him feeling more disoriented than last. 

“You’re crying because you’re sorry?” Connor made a face that Evan couldn’t quite read. Not past the tears. He might have been expressing his disappointment or just biting back a sour laugh. Evan wouldn’t be surprised if it was both.

 

_How fucking pathetic._

 

 

“No—! I…yes but no…not really, I’m sorry… I’m just, I’m sorry…” Evan sputtered. He felt compelled to defend himself but didn’t have the words or the vocal strength to get through his own sentence. What could he say, how could he say it — and most importantly, — how much more could he fuck this up? 

It seemed like he was dancing between the lines of being perfectly fine and just the complete opposite. On one hand he was okay. Physically speaking he was alright and the pain in his throat and chest were only minor. All he needed to do to fix that was breathe. Take a second, inhale and exhale. That’s all, it was so simple, and yet…he couldn’t.

Physiologically, something in his head, something in his brain was preventing him fromdoing that. From being able to have a normal response to the situation that was placed right in front of him. Really all he needed to do was apologize once, breathe in and out, wipe away those stupid tears and apologize again (for good measure), for yelling. And with both apologies maybe then he could find some peace of mind, just as he found peace in making eye contact with Connor.

But of course it couldn’t be that simple. To follow a few steps towards a steady outcome without any bumps in the road ahead. That was way too easy, and what had he done, ever, in his miserable life to deserve _easy_? It made sense that he would be burdened with the entire world between him and every single problem he needed to face. 

 

That was what Evan felt like he deserved. There was not one reason why he shouldn’t be feeling enough mixed emotions to drown in. He had done nothing worthy of feeling content. Nothing worthy of being alright. It didn’t matter where he was or what he was doing because it wasn’t enough and it never would be enough.

He could apologize to Connor all he wanted, he could do it until his throat burned from speaking. He could ramble on and on until he passed out… but that would never stop him from feeling guilty. Since he didn’t actually feel all that guilty— at least not for yelling at Connor. Or freaking out over a fire hydrant, or bursting into tears and humiliating himself. Guilt was not what was stirring his emotions. Guilt wasn’t causing him to feel like his throat was on fire and his lungs were constricting tight until he couldn’t breathe.

Guilt was only contributing to the clusterfuck of things that were out of Evan’s control. Out of his reach and eventually, beyond his recognition. It was fear that was making him feel sick to his stomach. Fear, that was contorting his reality into something indistinguishable and horrifying. He was so terrified of the very thought of being alone that he was willing to apologize until his voice gave out. Apologize until Connor forgave him, or felt sorry for him. Or something that would insure that he wasn’t going to abandon him like his father had. Like Jared had…like Heidi, practically, had. 

That sense of not caring, he was just being selfish. That’s why he didn’t deserve to be happy— that’s why he would never be truly happy either — because he only cared about himself. And the only thing he really wanted to do was prevent himself from becoming nothing. But nothing wasn’t very easy to ignore when all he was surrounded by was nothing, he needed a distraction…Connor could be that distraction.

 

He was scared of being left alone and felt guilty for thinking there was any other motive behind his actions.

 

 

“Stop apologizing.”

_He thinks you're annoying. You’re insufferable. He hates you._

 

“So— I’m…i’m sorry.” Evan rasped. He could hear Connor getting aggravated with him, yet he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t find that peace of mind that told him what he was doing was okay. That he could stop and just fucking _breathe_. That everything was or would be fine if he just shut up right then and there.

“What the fuck are you so sorry for?” Connor said. His words may have sounded angry to Evan but his voice is quite leveled. A part of Evan’s mind recognizes this but it's only faintly. And another, louder part tries to ignore it; doubt it, hash it out with an endless list of valid why-nots. 

Connor’s intention is not to feed Evan’s panic, but that’s exactly what he ends up doing anyway. There’s a disconnect. In between point A and B there is somethingsomewhere acting like a barrier. In the middle of it all there’s a big, _fat wall_ that limits Connor to the bare minimum. Connor’s words and tone may come out calm in his mind, but to Evan they sound ferocious and hostile. And so, the more he tries to help the worst it gets.

 

_You can’t do anything right._

 

 

“I, I’m b-being annoying…I yelled at you, I made you turn around f-for…a…for a fire hydrant..” Evan was seconds from sobbing now and Connor didn’t know how to prevent it.

“You didn’t make me do shit.” Connor replies sternly.

 

_Ungrateful. Worthless piece of garbage._

 

“I d-d-didn’t even say t-thank you.” Evan shakes his head, speech garbled by his sobbing. His face tinted red from a mix of embarrassment, crying and shame. Too many emotions scribble themselves into Evan’s expression. There were such prominent traces of humiliation in his eyes that it became borderline impossible to look at. But too difficult to ignore.

Connor took a moment to fish through his mind for something. “Stop _crying_ ,” he begins, speaking slower than before. “If you stop i’ll forgive you.”

 

“I-I can’t…I don’t know what’s wrong with me…” Evan replies shakily after a full minute of taking in sharp breaths of air. They don’t do him half as much good as he needs them to. It’s all too clipped, fast like he’s in a rush to do something important.

But nothing important needs to get done and no good is coming from his somehow-still quickening breaths. A force weighs heavy on top of his chest, another snakes around to his throat and clenches around it. 

“It’s really hard to be pissed off with you when you’re crying.”

“..I-I-I can’t…I can—” Evan chokes now, coughing and wheezing. Is he making any sense? Can Connor hear him past the God-awful sound of him suffocating on his own words?

“You _can_ , stop saying that you can’t. You can!” Apparent he can.

“I ca—” His words are cut off by a sharp, instinctive inhale. One that cuts his tongue and squeezes his throat so tight it convinces him, momentarily, that he’s dying. He’s actually dying. And just beyond the sound of him dying, gasping pitifully for any air he can get, he hears the jingle of keys. 

 

Watching through blurry eyes, Evan sees the light in the dashboard fade and suddenly, very suddenly, he’s standing. The wind cools the warmth in his face, dries his tears and bathes him in a burst of comforting, cold air. Outside. He’s not in the car anymore. Connor’s not in the car anymore. He can see the older’s boots perched in front of him. They’re close, very close, and a hand is on his arm and then on his hand and the world is—

Oh god everything is _spinning. Its spinning, Its spinning, Its spinning, Its spinning, Its spinning,_ and Evan thinks he might puke because now he’s nauseous and everything is just—

 

His hand. It’s being held, gripped tightly, lead somewhere. It’s on Connor’s hand now, his wrist, his thumb graces against skin. Rough, torn…his finger move across a scab and everything tilts awkwardly. The road, the car the pavement and the boots it all tilts to the right and then, abruptly, ruthlessly, it begins to spin faster. Faster than before, so fast that things are blurring and black dots are speckling his vision. And if it weren’t for Connor’s hand pressing into his shoulder, holding him upright, he certainly would have fell over.

Spinning. The world was spinning. There was a pressure in his shoulder and a _pressure_ on his chest and he could not. Could not for the life of him breathe. He was going insane, right? He had finally, officially lost it and all feeling in his legs, in his eyes - his sight. Vision blurring to the point where everything looked like an ugly, imperceptible smudge. Foggy, white noise surrounds his head and very faintly did he mange to register a word.

 

Connor was speaking to him and there was a pressure in his shoulder.

 

A pressure.

 

He pressed down. His thumb, it pressed down and, _give it a_ _moment_ ,there was a thump.

 

Then another.

 

And another.

 

 

_A heartbeat._

 

 

 

And he remembered how to breathe.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you enjoy?


	12. Scented-Flavored Cigarettes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan is concerned and he has every reason to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is late. I'm not dead.  
> Many subtle changes happened in the  
> previous chapters, suggest you go re-read  
> them if you have the time and haven't already.

 

 

 

 

 

“Are you okay?” The tone carrying those words held the strong implication that this was not the first time the question was being asked. At least that’s what Evan felt Connor was trying to insinuate by shaking him.

 

_And yeah,_ he was okay, _thanks so much for asking but would you please stop shaking me before I puke?_

 

Instead of mucking up the courage to say what was truly on his mind, Evan nodded, first slowly then quickly only halting when his vision went hazy for a second. 

 

There was this awful fluttering going on inside of his stomach.

 

Evan took another breath for good measure, ignoring the way his lungs tried to convince him that he needed several more (and _fast_ ). He looked up at Connor and…paused. Everything just paused. 

 

First it was spinning, then it was slowing down and now it’s gotten to a full on all-consuming halt. The cold, pre-winter air stopped midway through the action of brushing past him. A chilling sensation buzzed over his cheek in the wake of its standstill, then dissipated into nothing. But it did it slowly. The feeling faded out at a pace that gave Evan just enough time to digest it. To remember it.

 

The warmth of Connor’s hand, his fingertips and the pressure they dug into Evan’s shoulder. Fading.

 

The awkward strain in his abused lungs. Fading.

 

That fluttering feeling in his stomach? Eradicated. Yeah, he didn’t want to remember that, not in the slightest.

 

The burning behind his eyes and in his nose, which was probably clogged up with gross snot and _Oh God,_ was he an ugly, snot-nosed, truly unattractive cryer. What a great first impression he was making— well that uncomfortable self awareness was sure to stay (for a _long_ time, too. A part of him noted ruefully) but everything else? Fading.

 

The guilt and ever-present anxiety? That was, to say the least, taking its sweet sweet time. While everything else had slipped away — in the most alleviating way possible — tidbits and breadcrumb-sized emotions, which were usually so enormous and to no extent, overwhelming, remained. It became far easier to breathe.

 

So he did.

 

But he, himself…not really. He, _Evan_ was still standing frozen, dumbly staring at an equally frozen Connor. But he was breathing, or at least he felt like he could. The part of him that was breathing wasn’t quite the Evan that was standing completely still, this part of him didn’t feel…real. A part of him doubted that it was. 

 

He felt free…rather than disconnected. It was a good — relaxing even— out-of-body experience that he didn’t know he needed. That is, until he got it. Not until all those racing thoughts decided stop, and all those icky feelings decided to stop, and hell, even the entire world. It stopped and let him breathe.

 

A complete Standstill. _Finally_. Because for fucks sake did he need a standstill. It seemed like despite all the things his mind and body _and six sense_ couldn’t agree on a Standstill had beaten the odds and forced all three to make an executive decision. 

 

They drew a clever conclusion. Tied up all the unfastened knots, connected the dots, everything was so much clearer.

 

Connor was the one. He was going to drag him out of this shit-hole that was Evan’s broken reality. He just had to relax and trust him. Appease him. Make nice.

 

 

“I’m okay.” Evan said finally. And for once he was positive that he meant it. That fluttering in his stomach had ceased and Connor’s hand hadn’t dropped. Not yet, at least. But while it was still there, and he could actually _feel_ it there, Evan would relish in it.

 

Taking a bit of a chance, Evan drew his thumb over Connor’s wrist. (Why? Don’t ask. He didn’t know.) Curiosity guided the rest of his fingers up, slipping beneath the sleeve of Connor’s sweater. Evan grazed over subtle bumps and scabs lined in criss-cross patterns. He could’ve swore he felt the brunette’s pulse quicken before he tore himself away.

 

He watched as Connor snatched his hand away from his. Connor’s pupils glistening with defensive hostility and darkened to a shade of violent black. Devoid of any light and color.

 

Evan reeled back as a gust of wind threatened to push him forward. His fingers tingled with creeping apprehension. The way that Connor had taken to staring promptly sent red flags shooting through Evan’s head. His heart rate accelerated far too fast and his mind could only scream:

 

_Don’t stare. Don’t stare._ _Don’t stare. Don’t stare. Don’t stare. Don’t stare. Don’t stare._

 

 

He stared anyway.

Connor’s eyes were brown prior to this new tint, and blue much much earlier. Evan pondered over this information quickly and decided it must’ve had something to do with his power or ability. Although he had never seen one that altered a person’s eye color, it couldn’t’ve been entirely impossible.

 

Gaze clouded with an emotion Evan’s mind forced him to believe he couldn’t read well, Connor pulled his forearms close. His bleary and narrowed eyes were harrowingly captivating. He was stuck here. There was no way Evan could not stare now, he couldn’t look away. He didn’t want to.

 

 

_“..Because everyone who has ever looked me in the eyes has died.”_

 

 

Evan wasn’t a hundred precent positive of what Connor was feeling. His posture had stiffened in a way that felt threatening, like he could advance at any given second. This, accompanied with his stare sent Evan’s ever-present paranoia into overdrive. None of this boded well for him. 

 

Paranoia, six-sense or whatever, either way— the way that Connor’s shoulders lifted and fist balled made Evan want to back off. He just barely caught himself from spinning around and running. That was the part of him that wanted to live. The part that Evan thought had been drowned out years ago in a lake’s-worth of red numbers, shadows and perpetual anxiety.

 

 

Their gazes held onto each other for not even a split second more before Connor was diverted his gaze to the road, to his car and then to the lime green house somewhere beyond the two. Quite frankly, anywhere but Evan, it seemed. 

 

 

A soft ‘sorry’ slipped past Connor’s lips as he shoved his hands into his sweater pockets.

 

 

This caught Evan off guard and caused him to ignore the part of his mind that barked _pocket knife_. Connor wasn’t going to use it, and if he would, Evan now doubted it would be on anyone but himself. He wasn't that dense. He knew what scars meant.

 

 

“You’re sorry?” He found himself asking. “Why?”

 

 

 

The silence that stretched out between them, them and the side walk and the grass peaking between the crevices in the pavement, just screamed ‘hypocrite’. It was only broken when Connor barked out a hollow laugh, and Evan readily joined him.

“For fuck’s sake.” Connor shook his head and in a fluid motion drew out a pack of cigarettes from his sweater pocket. Evan could’ve sworn that it wasn’t there before. He found himself even more perplexed when the taller seemed to manifest a cigarette into his left hand without having to even open the container. It just appeared there.

 

The pack of cigarettes was replaced with a lighter. It just poofed. Right out of existence, gone. Evan choked quietly in growing fear that something was still seriously wrong. 

 

They had already passed the fire hydrant. The immediate threat was over. Was this another warning? What was coming? Who was dying — was his mom okay? Was Jared? — what if he had missed something? Someone could be dead, they were dying now, weren’t they? And it was his fault. It was always his fault. He’d neglected the signs and missed it and now someone was dyi—

 

“Hey. Acorn, breathe.” Connor’s voice sounded close, at least far closer than it was before. Obediently, Evan found himself obliging without giving the action or his situation much though.

 

Smoke. He inhaled a waft of suffocating smoke.

 

Within seconds, Evan was practically coughing up his lungs. The cigarette that had magically seemed to find its way between his lips tumbled to the pavement. There, the lit end glowed innocently, just begging to be picked up so it could devour the rest of the cancer stick. 

 

Evan wheezed.

 

“Now you’re just being dramatic.” Connor said past the butt of his own cigarette.

 

“H-how?” Evan managed out. His hand scrunched up the soft fabric hems of the pink sweater. It still wasn’t his, but his sixth sense was telling him he was about to get a better idea of how he got it on.

 

Connor arched his brow.

 

“Y-you— How did— Uh…how?—!” Evan was certain that a toddler could come across as far more eloquent than he was being right now on this very day. “Where?”

 

Lucky for him, Connor seemed to be able to decode this.

 

“Teleportation.” He replies.

 

 

 

Well that made sense.

 

 

“Oh.” Was all that Evan could manage.

 

 

_Oh._

 

 

Teleportation was…really rare. As far as Evan knew only twenty five out of seven billion people were blessed with such a useful ability. The number was exceptionally less for that of portal manifestation. It was nearly unheard of. Evan found himself gaping. 

 

He felt like he was in one of those cliché tv shows were he, the protagonist, had a crush on someone with little to no flaws, or a little too many flaws. Something like a super hot jock guy, captain of the football team, extremely popular with green eyes because nobody ever sees those. This or the stereotypical good girl falling for the bad boy decked out head to toe in piercings and tattoos. All he needed was a motorcycle and a criminal record. The last one seemed more than likely. It fit the criteria quite nicely, in Evan’s opinion. Except Evan would never be the protagonist. He was more of a background character, an extra, expendable. And for all he knew Connor could be far from from all of those things. Evan didn’t really know him.Not yet. Not the real him, if what he was seeing wasn’t it. All he knew for sure was that Connor just happened to be born with a great power _and_ ability. Even when the odds were not in his favor.

 

“Y-you can teleport _and_ open portals?”

 

Connor rolled his shoulders into a rather nonchalant shrug. “Yep.” He took a steady drag. “Leave it to the universe to nullify the fuck out’a my P.A.Q average.”

 

It took Evan a moment to wrap his head around the statement, especially since Connor seemed to put his blessings beneath negative connotations. P.A.Q stood for power, ability and quirks (which were arguably synonyms). In their school district, P.A.Q is used to determine which rank a student is. The ranking system was supposedly created to divide students as a way to offer them the best learningopportunities that accommodated their P.A.Q. However, by the time anyone reached middle school it became obvious the real reason for the rank divide was to keep high ranks from killing lower ranks. _Killing_ not being an overstatement in the slightest.

 

Having a power and ability was uncommon enough as it is. In Connor’s case, he had the power to manifest portals and the ability to teleport. Both of which, after a moment of pondering, Evan realized were disappointingly similar. Since the bare minimum of their use contributed to transport their grade would be marked as the same.

 

Evan let out a gentle ‘oh’. The fact that Connor could teleport completely canceled out the worth of his portal manifestation power. Now the only real worth it held was to show off that he was one in nine bajillion. Even then, the knowledge of its uselessness made the spark of envy die quick.

 

“Sheesh…” He muttered as the gravity of that really sunk in. “That s-sucks, I’m sorry.”

 

“You’re sorry?”

 

Evan felt himself shrink underneath the annoyance in Connor’s tone. “I-I-I’m sorry.”

 

“Oh my fucking god.” Connor scoffed.

 

“…sorry.” Evan instinctively muttered.

 

“Why’re you so fucking sorry all of the time?”

 

“I’m no—” Evan caught himself. 

 

 He would be lying if he said he wasn’t sorry. He lived in this state of mind where it felt like one apology was never enough. After all when you’re talking face to face with someone and watching that little black line above their head turn red because you are literally wasting their limited time on this planet by being unable to quickly decide whether a ‘goodbye’ or ‘have a nice day’ is going to stop them from being hit by a bus, you tend to feel a bit apologetic. If Evan wasn’t dwelling over his past, worrying about his mother or contemplating the pros and cons of death, then he was thinking of how sorry he was.

 Sorry for the losses of the mothers who were going to get the call that every parent dreads. The one where they have to listen to someone tell them that their baby, their life, is dead, that they’re gone and they aren’t ever coming back. And to think, maybe if he had taken the time to muster up some courage and say _Hi,_ that even if delayed for a tiny second more, so many people could be alive right now. If he could he would apologize for that too. Not having the courage. Not stepping up. He’d apologize for apologizing. And for being an annoying, constantly sorry, sorry excuse for a son. And for existing and wasting the oxygen other people could be using to breathe. The list went on indefinitely. But it seemed like Connor wanted to cut it short. Maybe he had something to be sorry about too, or maybe Evan was overthinking it again.

 

“W-wh-why do you s-smoke all of the time?” Evan said, trying to counter. Answer a question with a question. It usually worked.

 

Connor shrugged. “Why don’t you?”

 

Keyword usually.

 

“Wha— Its not…It isn’t good for you— me. It’s not good for me. It isn’t healthy t-to smoke.” Evan subconsciously began to pick at the hems of his sweater. His sweater? It wasn’t his, it was someones, but not his. He wondered if he would have to give it back one day. Not today though.

 

“So?”

 

_So?_ Evan shifted his weight off one foot and onto the other. He worried his lip over the monosyllabic response. “Its bad for you. S-smoking can like, kill you.”

 

“You aren’t living if you spend your entire life worried about when you’ll be dead.” Connor says. While he wasn’t wrong, Evan didn’t think that statement applied to him. 

 

He already knew when he was going to die. He knew every shape and form and was intimately familiar with the pain that came along with slipping into the white, gray and black loop before having to restart. 

 

Evan did, however spend his every waking hour worrying about when every except him was going to die. He worried that on the days his mother didn’t come home that she would never come home. He worried that he would receive a drunk call from Jared(and Jared never calls him, so he would know something was wrong) way, way too late and he wouldn’t be able to stop him before he did something stupid. He worried that adding Connor to his list of worries was not a good idea.

 

He worried that today was going to be the day he smoked his first cigarette.

 

Evan felt his shoulders sag in defeat. A wisp of cold air tried to detangle the mess of dirty blonde hair that was dark enough to be considered brown. He felt the breeze cut at his face like a painful reminder that he was still alive, but not quite. He could still feel his nose and the tips of his fingers, and even though it was cold Evan didn’t feel cold. He just felt there. In this one spot, at this one time, existing in a cruel facade until the point where he wouldn’t. 

 

“Living is overrated.” He blurts out…

 

 

…and Connor laughs. It’s not a laugh-laugh, its short and kind of breathy but still a laugh and it it so incredibly riveting that Evan thinks it might just be his new favorite sound. Paired with the fact that it was such a morbid thing to laugh at, it was oddly endearing. Anyone else that Evan knew wouldn’t have taken the comment so lightly. They wouldn’t have treated it as a joke, and to be fair it wasn’t one, but he got the feeling that Connor knew that. What made it funny in the first place was the fact that it wasn’t a joke to begin with.

 

“I love dark humor.” Connor admits quietly. Which figures, because Evan wasn’t a fan of it, not in the slightest. But right about now he was thinking that he could learn to like it. “And for the record, you don’t know that I smoke all of the time.” Connor adds after a pregnant pause.

 

_Yes and no_ , Evan mused to himself. _I don’t know for sure, but I do know that you smoke more frequently than you care to admit. Or at least you will._ He took a moment to decipher whether or not he should keep that information to himself. On one hand he could come off as creepy. Like some sort of stalker slash serial killer or something, which was funny since Connor was the one covered in blood, wounds and baring a pocket knife (this was several hours ago, though). But on the other hand it made for a good change of subject which Evan really wanted. 

 

So he told him this and was met with one of Connor’s blanker stares. It wasn’t hostile, to say the least. It was more of something expressing his dispassionate personality. 

 

Evan was gradually coming to terms with the fact that Connor might just be like that. And that was okay, saying the very least.

 

Sure, he had only just met him today (yesterday, since it was past twelve) but for Evan, ‘today’ was an umbrella term. It was today _and_ all the things that could happen today _and_ tomorrow and all the things that could happen _tomorrow_ and even a year from now _and_ all the things that could happen then. To anyone he had ever met, it came off as obsessive for him to be imagining an entire lifetime with them, especially upon their first meeting. To all those people that he had known and lost, Evan found himself apologizing. He couldn’t help it nor could he stop.

 

 

Connor had a lot of looks. Hostile being the most prominent, dead (which very briefly made all feeling in Evan’s fingertips vanish) and unimpressed. Evan quickly decided that Connor probably didn’t believe him. He probably thought he was weird. Which was normal. If he were Connor, Evan would think that he was weird too. This or Connor was waiting for him to further explain. Either was just as likely but elucidating never hurt anybody. Oh well, actually that was a lie. But at least it didn’t apply to Connor, what he knew couldn’t hurt him at this point.

 

“I- uhm…p-precognition.” Evan said, voice trembling characteristically. However, he felt far more curious than afraid. His apprehension was nothing short of transient. When he was around Connor any fear he had felt always seemed to dissipate within a few seconds. Granted that it be noted: Connor was what had stimulated the fear. 

 

This caused another thought skittered through Evan’s mind. What if Connor had another power or ability? Maybe even a powerful quirk? Three was truly pushing it, but Zoe Murphy had three. Fire, water and air. Kinda like the Avatar. 

 

If the elderly woman from that secluded house in the forest knew what she was talking, then Connor most likely had three too. His third power (Or ability or quirk) was probably messing with Evan’s emotions, keeping him calm when he should be freaking out. Keeping him from freaking out when a normal person would be calm, or at least disquieted.

 

Again, a flicker of envy. Was it him or did Connor get blessed with all the extremely useful powers and abilities? Evan could be wrong but if he wasn’t then Connor was some kind of lucky. These powers and abilities were ones he could actually use in his adult life—

 

As if on cue Evan’s vision had clouded over with a flash of hostile red. A brutal shade of bloody mahogany. Just as quickly as it came it passed and he was left shaken and somewhat dazed. Connor was talking.

 

“…where you can see into the future and shit?” He said.

 

Evan blinked dumbly. His eyes followed the fall of what little remained of Connor’s cigarette; he watched it disappear beneath the older’s boot and winced as the flame was snuffed into the oblivion. Just gone. Like any trace of that aforementioned adulthood.

 

He was right to worry.

 

“Uh. Yeah.” Evan said. He made a mental note to disgorge the information he just swallowed. If he was lucky by tomorrow any trace of it would be long forgotten and he could remain in his little bubble of hope for having a friendship that would last.

 

“What?” Connor fixed him with a confused look and it dawned on Evan that he’d been mumbling. On top of his stutter, he mumbled. A lot. This was probably the reason why he didn’t have any friends. This and the fact that they would die, because everyone dies, but not really because everyone is technically already dead.

 

“Oh— um, i-i’m—”

 

Connor cut him off, “I swear t’god if you say that you’re sorry—”

 

“S-sorry.” Evan finished.

 

Connor groaned irritably and with the roll of his eyes, made a move to go. Evan swore he felt his heart tense with every single step Connor took leading away from him. The growing distance surpassed harrowing. It was physically enervating. Watching Connor move away from the grass and the cracked pavement. He stepped down onto the road and then strode in front of his car, halting, whirling around. He pressed his hands down on top of the hood of the ultramarine mustang. 

 

It took a moment — as it always did — for Evan to wrap his head around the pressure building in his chest and even more so to figure out what Connor was doing. Movements mechanical, Evan followed in taller’s footsteps. Followed him off of the pavement and onto the road. He kept a precautious distance as not to raise alarm once he’d fallen in line with Connor, standing in front of the blue car. And surely enough the pressure began to ease. But not completely. It slinked up to the space behind his temple and threaded faint but sharp needles of pain throughout Evan’s head. 

 

He was going to have a serious headache in the morning. Especially if his ability kept activating by itself and feeding him information he didn’t know what to do with.

 

Connor had moved his phone up to the dashboard so that it was pressed against the windshield. Even from his spot several steps behind Connor, Evan could make out the GPS barking out directions to his house. _Fifteen minutes away._

 

A message notification interrupted any repetition of the monotone voice, Evan recognized the contact name. **MeltedIceCream.** Just like before.

 

**◊** They’ll live.

 

After a second had passed, the phone disappeared and Connor had turned around to face Evan. His hands were still pressed against the hood of his car, which he’d taken to leaning against. 

 

“I take it you aren’t getting back in.” Unable to distinguish whether this was a statement or rhetorical question, Evan averted his gaze. It landed on some orange cat darting across the road which made his six-sense gush unnecessarily about how Connor would’ve ran it over, had Evan not freaked out over something seemingly infinitesimal like a fire hydrant.

 

Another life saved, he supposed.

 

 

Connor swatted at Evan’s shoulder to grasp his attention. “You up for a walk?”

 

Evan stared for a moment. _Yes, of course._ If it meant he got to spent more time with Connor then he was all for it. And it was funny, really. Little things always seemed to sneak past him and catch him by surprise. He could see into the future, sure, but he could never quite place what Connor planned to do next. His motives were far beyond Evan.

 

Unable to help himself, Evan asked, “didn’t you have somewhere to be?” 

“I just said that to get you out of the house faster.” Connor shrugged his shoulders lazily.

“Seriously?”

“No.” Connor deadpans, summoning another cigarette between his fingers. “It’s not as urgent anymore so I have time to kill.”

 

Evan stared expectantly.

 

Connor didn’t acknowledge the stare at first and instead opted to light his cigarette. 

 

Evan got the faintest urge to scold him for it, smoking was bad for his health after all, but he couldn’t say that without coming off as an even bigger hypocrite. Connor had literally told him that making direct eye contact was a death sentence and Evan had yet to hesitate to look him in the eyes. 

 

“What?” Connor caved in after a short inhale.

 

“Um.” Evan began, pushing his previous train of thought off of the rails and into the fucking abyss below because who was he to be criticizing Connor’s life choices? “Well, what was…uh, what as so u-urgent?

 

Connor pressed the cigarette between his lips. His gaze was slightly downcast but he looked far more relaxed than earlier. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

 

Evan shuffled on his feet, his gross and sweaty hands tried to retreat into the safety of his khaki pockets only to be met with the realization that he was no longer wearing those pants. The pockets on these jeans where too small to squeeze his stupid fingers in so he was left to awkwardly play it off like he was just wiping his hands off on his jeans, which was weird because now Connor probably thought he had something on his hands like gross, disgusting sweat because that’s what he was, gross and disgusting so why would Connor want to waste his time with someone like him?

 

“W-well, you know…it’s gon— going to be…a uh, a long walk…so…”

 

The only sound between them was the near inaudible sigh Connor let out. From that point on they stood in silence. Evan waiting patiently as Connor proceeded to take his time with the cigarette and only stomp it out when all but most of the white had burned and shriveled away. Still unsatisfied, Connor rose up a finger, gesturing for Evan to wait for just a second as he went to search his car. 

 

Evan was left to watch him dig through the glove compartment for what felt like five minutes. The scent of the cigarette still hung potent in the cold air. Maybe it had froze in time too, trapped in a foggy cloud around Evan’s nostrils so he would be forced to smell the oddly herbal scent that reminded him of teabags. He vaguely knew of scented cigarettes, were those a thing? Tea-scented cigarettes? Or was it flavored? Tea flavored cigarettes sounded disgusting and sort of ironic since tea was healthy and nicotine certainly was anything but. Ironic or deceiving? Possibly both.

 

His fingers itched to look up the answer on his phone but to his misfortune, he was without that too. Figures. Evan refocused his attention to Connor. He was still looking through the car for whatever. More scented-flavored cigarettes? Something stronger?

 

Evan could see the exact moment Connor found what he was looking for because his impassive expression pealed away into a coy sort of grin, like he was hesitant to show how pleased he was with his find.

 

A quiet thud emanated from inside the car in the wake of the glove compartment being slammed shut. Another thud, accompanied by a deafening click, echoed down the empty street, just a moment after when the car door swung shut. Sound always seemed to magnify when everything else around it was silent. It almost felt rude to disturb such a quiet hour, but for the wrong reasons.

 

People were trying to rest, sleeping to battle a day of productivity. Someone’s baby probably woke up just because Connor couldn’t be bothered to shut the door a little quieter. Now that baby would cry, and cry, and cry like babies do and wake up their exhausted, hardworking parents who would then not get half as much sleep as they should so when they have to face the day and go to work like normal human beings and contribute to the toxic society they lived in they would get just a _little_ drowsy behind the wheel and think, ‘i’ll only shut my eyes for a moment’ and all of the sudden their car is trunk-deep in a Taco Bell.

 

Pain. There was a sharp, tingling pain behind Evan’s right temple. His brain reeled as Connor went from by the driver’s side of his car to right in front of him, shaking a tin of something in front of his face. He was pretty sure any remaining logical side of his subconscious was having an aneurysm.

 

When his brain had finally accepted the fact that _teleportation_ in the living flesh was a thing, Evan winced. His headache was getting worse with the rattling contents inside of the plastic tin-thing. Up came a tiny orange container, obscuring his perisperhal for a solid five seconds before Connor pulled it away.

 

“You always spacing out, or am I boring you?” Connor queried while twisting off the white cap Evan knew had a child-safety lock on it. He remembered finding a similar one in the medicine closet while on the search for fruit shaped vitamin gummies. His mom had hid them because Evan ate those things like candy. In his defense and a sense of all fairness that’s what they tasted like, candy. Instead of the fruit snack wanna-be’s he was met with the orange container and a child-like compulsion to open it.

 

“Uh, n-no…sorry.” Evan muttered.

 

The container opened with a satisfying click-pop kind of sound. It didn’t have a label, so nothing covered the translucent orange plastic. There were at least a handful of white pills, twelve of which slid out into Connor’s palm and in a brisk movement, disappeared into his mouth in groups of three.

 

Evan thought teleportation was a mind-fuck but this promptly took the cake. Those pills weren’t exactly small and even though Evan knew from experience twelve wasn’t enough to kill him, it was still warrants his concerning. And he swallowed them down like it was nothing. Dry. What the hell. What The. Actual. Hell. 

 

Yeah, this was the same guy who was mortally wounded not more than thirty, forty something hours ago. But still, his brain couldn’t process this. This exceeded all logic. 

 

What was Connor, immortal? 

 

At the thought Evan saw so much red that it made his brain seer with pain. It didn’t cloud his vision or anything. Not this time, at least. Instead it was just the feeling of the color red. He didn’t actually see color but he sure as hell felt it and a violent burst of pressure that could only be accurately labeled as a fine scarlet. It felt suiting.

 

So he wasn’t immortal. That was noted. Evan wanted to scrap that note. He didn’t need it in the back of his mind popping up unconventionally. Right now what he needed to do was just know _how_.

 

And as if on cue…

 

 

Connor rose his hand up to his throat and cleared it before hoarsely asking, “what do you want to know?”

 

Evan knew what he was originally going to ask. How many powers do you have? What was so urgent? Why candy coded text? What the hell is black licorice? Do you know that elderly couple in the woods? Why? How? What? Everything was running through his brain but only one thing stood out. Only one question demanded his attention. The rest just blurred into the background.

 

 

“How are you still alive?”


	13. Simmer to Scalding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter, I might keep them short to update faster :U

 

 

 

 

 There was this thing Jared did whenever he felt uncomfortable or put on the spot. 

 

 And that was shrug. 

 

 Just shrug. A movement of his shoulders, up then down. Whenever he felt he was being asked an invasive question that he couldn’t dodge or dip around, he moved his shoulders and brushed it off. Understandable, really. 

 But as of late he had become fairly consistent in his shoulder movement and it was kind of beginning to tick Evan off.

 

 Just a harmless, evasive little shrug. No comment, no explanation. Just a shrug. As if that magically became an acceptable response.

 

 Like, for instance, whenever Evan was trying to have a meaningful and deep conversation with him, Jared would shrug and brush it off like he didn’t have feelings to share. But Evan knew better, and his six sense told him Jared could do better than that. He could give a better response than just shoulder movement. Evan deserved a little more than shoulder movement. Evan just had to crack Jared convince him.

 

 So, Evan would diligently continue to save his life and keeping him out of catastrophic levels of trouble, and eventually be rewarded with a cheesy heart-felt conversation that only ever occurred in movies.

 

 And clichés be damned, Evan really want to have a cheesy, heartfelt, one-on-one conversation with somebody. He wanted to open up to someone, spill his guts and worries because venting it out by screaming into his pillow or crying in the shower wasn’t cutting it. 

 

 Speaking with Connor while they were still in the car, talking about the weight of everything…that was _really_ really nice. And while it felt sort of like drowning at first, the negativity slowly warped into something different. Something more. Surreal. Better. 

 

 Like he was dreaming and underwater, and of course he’s scared at first but then he realizes that he can breathe right.

 

 And that’s what it felt like. Realizing it could breathe right.

 

…If realizing he could breathe right again was too much to ask, then he wanted the security of knowing there was at least someone who would be willing to listen.

 

 At least…

 

 

 But for right now, all he had was Jared, and Jared wasn’t willing to listen so Evan had to convince him to. Even if it meant sharing the bare minimum of things, it would still be a weight off of Evan’s shoulders.

 So he had to convince him.

 

 He had to, otherwise who else would he have to share his thoughts with? His mother wasn’t an option— lest he wanted her to worry. As a vast majority of his ideations tip-toed around death. Vast being no understatement. Evan danced with the idea of dying on an every day basis. He feared coming to back in the computer lab in the second grade every other day and dreaded dying in fifty different ways every week. Sharing the half of it with his mother would be a very selfish and attention seeking thing of him to do and Evan really liked to think he wasn’t the type of person to make himself feel better at the expense of someone else. Especially not someone like his mother.

 

 What small portion of his mind that wasn’t clouded by death was spent ghosting over his past. Back when his dad and his mom didn’t speak to each other using contrived, tense words; like they were stepping on glass while trying to hold a pleasant conversation. Anything before his advanced enlightenment of the world, and metaphorical doors and the Black, White and Gray obscuring any hope of being happy. 

 Back before he had to _hope_ to one day be happy.

 But Jared scowled upon Before, because Before was when they were just friends and not just-family-friends. Before was when it didn’t matter who was staring, or looking, because they were only kids and children did weird things. It would be childish to judge a child for acting like one.

 

 Well now they weren’t children. And now Jared was allergic to Evan’s presence at school and in public and simply in general depended on which side of the bed he woke up on. So now Evan was stuck following Connor of all people around like a puppy who just loved getting kicked. 

 

 This was a friendship that was only going to hurt him. Both of them. Evan was certain Connor knew of that. He, himself was too. But he was also desperate.

 

 And Well.

 

 When he asked Connor how he was still alive.

 Connor shrugged.

 

 And Evan didn't mind it at all.

 

 

 Then Connor led him to the sidewalk. Keyword led since he grabbed a hold of Evan’s wrist at one point and then proceeded to pull him along. Evan wasn’t exactly in the position to refuse the contact nor protest the abrupt movement. He was getting caught up in another daze. The sluggishness he brandished earlier came creeping forth in the form of blunt knifes jabbing at his temple from the inside. 

 Was his six sense overworking itself? He wrongly assumed the Stand Still would have subdued any of the questions his subconscious persisted in asking. Again, maybe Connor had something to do with it. He had mentioned something in the like…TCE.

 

 It hurt just to think about. Bad. 

 

 The activation process of his power was entirely involuntary, it was neither something he could switch on or off. So he absorbed information at a constant with no filter. It made for a serious migraine after awhile. School being no exception, unconsciously taking in every movement, every possibility, every word, phrase and heartbeat in his vicinity. It did a number on him and his mental health. Which was why his subconscious did him a favor and didn’t register half the things he saw. He saw things without Seeing them, and therefore without needing to waste a ton of energy on evaluating said thing.

 But whatever was reducing his power to goop, and allowing him to become sidetracked at random and making him far more spacey than he was used to being wasn’t hurting him as much mentally as it was physically. Evan wasn’t sure if he should be thankful or not, or what difference it would make. So he tried to go over it in his head, as he often did when he didn’t know where to start.

 He walked to school with Jared. That was today?

_Its past twelve._

 

 Yesterday. And the day before yesterday he had a dream about drowning. Yesterday a bus crashed into the river. No one will be severely injured. Everyone will be left some sort of shaken. He had a vision. It was odd, and fuzzy. Somebody would get hurt in school, bad. Not him though. He was safe. The day went by. Evan barely remembered it now. He met Connor. The brunette came out of a portal all bloody like he’d just been through a paper shredder. Surreal. His life was surreal. He followed Connor through the portal and through the forest and he wound up in that house with the elderly couple. Connor broke stuff. He mentioned something. There was a chat box open. They left. Connor bought him coffee. Evan didn’t like coffee. Connor drove him halfway home. They were walking now.

 

 Evan still had so many questions.

 

 Even though he hardly had any room to think, he was sure his subconscious actions made sense. His legs were working on auto-pilot and letting Connor steer him along.

 

 “You’ve got seventeen more questions left.” Connor says, pausing just briefly. Evan was caught completely off guard. His eyes widened - half in amusement, half in awe. Did Connor read his mind or was he just that obvious?

 Connor adverts his gaze. He moves at this brisk amble, just short of speed walking. A pace impressive for someone who logically shouldn't be able to move any part of their body. Saying the least, of course. Evan struggled to fall in line with him. And at one point he even had to jog to catch up to the taller boy and only then did Connor decide to slow down.

 

 “You kept count?” There was an unsaid ‘actually’ in that otherwise rhetorical question.

 “Yeah.” Connor replied. “And I’m holding you to that dinner-date.”

 “Oh?” Evan gasped, albeit more out of excitement than surprise.

 “No, not really.” Connor said. There was a pause, like he was considering his answer, but Evan didn’t catch it. The answer stung.

 “O-oh.” Evan visibly deflates. The flicker of hope in his eyes dimming like candle flames threatening to be hushed. There was a faint tint of rose color in his cheeks that didn’t go unnoticed by Connor, who decided now was as good a time as any to press the matter.

 

 “Don’t tell me you were looking forward to it.” He says.

 Evan scrunches his brow because, well yes, he was looking forward to it. He really hoped that Connor would be more willing to see him again, and if planning a date is what it took then Evan would bust out the suit and tie his mother had brought him in the eighth grade, hoping that she could guilt trip him into going to the dance-thing that Evan definitely did not got to. He hadn’t grown much since then, so he was fairly sure he could fit it. And _aside_ the point, he was thinking way too far ahead for a right-now question, but that question was so awful. Why did Connor have to word it like that? He wasn’t a big fan of the phrase ‘don’t tell me…’ or ‘please, don’t tell me…’ What was he supposed to do? Lie? Tell the truth and feel like a defiant little shit?

 

 “I dunno…” Evan settles, shrugging on impulse. “Ma-maybe? I mean…a little. It could be fun.”

 “You must have a very strange definition of fun if you want to hang out with _me_ , of all people, for another day.” Connor replies. Unlike his last few self-deprecating quips, this one carries no hint of dejection. Instead his voice sounded ruminative and perplexed, as if he were genuinely baffled that anyone would want to be around him.

 

 Evan may have sounded a tidbit confused when he asked, but by all means wasn’t surprised. “Is that such a bad thing?”

 “Well,” Connor shrugs again, giving it some thought. “Considering when you first met me I looked like I got into a fight with a _very_ angry chainsaw and lost, I would hope so. Yeah.”

 Evan blinked owlishly. “Did that really happen today? It felt like such a long time ago…”

 

 Truth be told, it did feel like it had happened ages ago. But Evan’s concept of time was already out of whack. He was simultaneously living in the present, future and past. It couldn’t be helped and despite only knowing Connor for less than a handful of hours, at this point Evan could honestly imagine having some sort of platonic relationship with him. Something where they went on little dates, walked parked trails and spoke about things that did and did not matter. Shared unfiltered opinions with trust, and had conversations that Evan couldn’t even begin to hope to broach upon with Jared.

 

 He could of swore he heard Connor snort. “God, you’re weird.”

 “I get that a lot.” Evan nods because it’s true. And not to float his own boat, but half the school probably knows it too. A small, quiet part of Evan won’t let him forget that he went to elementary and middle school with a lot of the people he’s in high school with now. Minus a few faces. And since he knows himself, and knows that it’s entirely possible that nobody remembers his name — or that he even still exists, — he also knows that at one point they did know it. They knew him.

 

 And then all decided that they didn’t want to anymore.

 

 Connor seems to catch onto the lull in Evan’s voice. “Not—uh, weird. Weird is ignorant. You’re just different.” He apologizes, kind of. His tone seems apologetic, but the words “i’m sorry,” never make it past his lips.

 

 Evan isn’t sure how to respond to it. Not too sure it requires a response. But Connor continues to speak and in retrospect it might have been because Evan was staring at him. Not expectantly, or anything of the sort, but just… in a daze.

 

 “Its not a bad thing.” Connor takes to clarifying.

 “You might be the only one that thinks so.” Evan replies after a much too long moment of idle thought.

 “I wouldn’t mind that.” Connor muses. “Being the only one who understands. Makes me actually seem important.”

 “You’re important.” Evan says, without thinking about it really. It just came out, like it had been sitting right below the surface just waiting to emerge at the right moment. Like he had been wanting to say it for months now. 

 

_You’re important to me._

 

 But he couldn’t say that. That would be pushing his luck in the whole creepy-stalker department. Evan was fairly certain he was treading on thin, thin ice. He could already hear it, creaking and screaming like  the impact of glass on a harsh surface right before its breaking commenced. The sound of the cracks rippling through the transparent structure. Drawing ugly rivers beneath the surface deep enough to peek through the other side, dozens, millions of tiny rivers bubbling to life. Winding like zig-zag lines through the glass until it was impossible to hold together. And _then_ it shatters.

 

 And then he falls through the ice.

 

 And he’s drowning in the cold, cold blue that he’s sure Connor’s eyes were at one point.

 

 And trying to breathe in is just pushing his luck.

 

 He’s about to cross a line. Hell, he already has. His six sense is reaming at him for diving headfirst into this _mess_. This mess that he couldn’t look away from. A mess that was going to utterly destroy him as he tried to clean it up, pick up the shards of broken glass like its not _shattered_ because what is shattered has been broken into far too many pieces to be truly fixed, it can’t ever be whole again, but yet Evan finds himself trying and getting cut on the pieces he’s desperately attempting to glue together. And knowing himself, he’s probably enjoying every second of it like the self-destructive piece of garbage he is. 

 “You’re important, Connor.” Evan says again, voice firmer than what it was before. Too strong. Too confident for someone like him.

 Connor visibly withdraws. And he looks uncomfortable. Like he wants to accept the compliment but he knows he can’t, his body wont allow it and its a self-defense mechanism because believing in something so bright is setting yourself up for being left in the darkness and Evan gets that. He knows. And Evan knows its down hill from here on out, he just knows it knows it knows it knows it.

 

He knows he can’t convince Connor.

 

 Connor has stopped walking again, and Evan stops with him. So they’re left standing there on the sidewalk staring at and through each other since there isn’t any other way to face their problems. And Evan has no fucking clue where and what Connor’s problems are, and has no right to assume that he can fix it with a pretty little compliment.

 Evan goes to fiddle with the sleeve of his (not his, Connor’s? Someone’s.) sweater as he juggles around the weight of his next question. Decides it can’t do that much more damage, and thinks he’s being merciful by changing the subject by adding,

 

 “What was the fight about?”

 Connor stiffens and if it were possible, Evan felt as though he just took several steps away from him without even moving at all. And he knows he isn’t going to come back from this. Not today.

 

When Connor doesn’t respond after a reasonable time, Evan’s panic is fueled like a match flame being thrown into a puddle of gasoline, thinking he might have struck a very sensitive nerve. That Connor hadn’t fully digested what Evan had said before and now he was dog piling problems. It wasn’t any of Evan’s business, why would he ask something so invasive and personal? He saw first-hand the aftermath of it all, what the hell was wrong with him?

 Evan opened his mouth, ready to retract the question. Say he’s sorry a thousand times over until his throat was properly sore from it, but _now_ Connor decides to answer.

 

“Something stupid.” 

 Evan watches his hands disappear into the pockets of his hoodie.His mind wanders for a split second or two and ghosts over how he first met Connor again. Seeing him, bloody, mutilated but unfazed.

 

 “Oh.” Evan breathes away the color flushing his face. He had no idea what else he could say. Has no right to judge Connor for what he did. No right to even think of how hot Connor looked like that, no right at all. Now was not the time to think like _that_ of all things, Evan was already being told off by his better judgement that first said Connor was bad news, and he was stuck listening to his six sense support and contradict the former’s claim, so he definitely didn’t need any more conflicting input.

 Whatever the reason, it’s not really Evan’s business anyway.

 

 “If you’re worried, they had it coming.” Connor says in reply. But it’s stiff. And that’s bad.

 Evan finds himself shrugging. “I wasn’t, but…uh…thanks for sharing.”

 “Mm.”

 

 

 There’s a tense silence resting between them when Connor goes to check his phone, wincing at the brightness of it. Evan had the sense not to press the topic. Though he wanted to, courtesy of curiosity. 

 It wasn’t like it was an uncommon thing, fights. In fact it might have been the most common thing to happen in school that Evan could think of. This was just the first time he had witnessed the full extent of the aftermath. Although, Connor didn’t seem like the best representation with all the factors to be considered. He made it out alive and breathing…could the same be said for whoever he fought?

 Before Evan could give the question some proper thought, he blurts,

 

 “Do you think that hatchet’s still there?”

 Connor looked up from his phone then switched it off and pocketed it. At first he didn’t appear to know what the hell Evan was talking about, but by some odds his face lit up in recognition and he shook his head.

 

 “No. My… buddies took care of that.” Connor says, then cringes belatedly stupid and vague it sounded. 

 

_Buddies._ Was Connor avoiding the word friends? Were these the same people that texted Connor? Or was Evan blowing the entire thing out of proportion by making assumptions. He avoided the use of the word ‘friend’, sometimes too, if he wasn’t positive where he stood in a relationship. Jared was the only person he had ever thought to call a friend. But Evan knew exactly where he stood with him.

 Family friends…

 

 Yeah.

 

 “Sounds ominous. L-like the mafia or something…” Evan says, jokingly. Trying and failing to lighten the mood. Offhandedly, his brain drifts back to that chat box he caught a peep of. He still had seventeen questions, maybe sixteen if any of the ones he asked prior counted.

 Connor scoffed, “that’s a vast overstatement.”

 

 Evan makes an unconscious attempt to step over a crack in the pavement, but his movements betray him and he ends up nearly tripping over his own feet. Lucky him, Connor wasn’t paying him any mind, instead his gaze had drifted back to his phone.

 A little desperate to keep the conversation rolling, Evan speaks over the silence, but his voice comes out a little louder than intended and Connor stiffens irritably. It isn’t a good sign.

 

 “Um— sorry…but, what, uh what are they like?” 

 “Be more specific.” Connor replies sharply, almost daring Evan to say never mind. Dare he say pleading. Connor doesn’t put his phone away this time, either. A little piece of evidence that he isn’t half as interested in idle chit-chat anymore.

 

 Out of habit, Evan fiddled with the borders of his (not his) sleeves and avoided Connor’s gaze. His tone had changed rapidly from tense to full on agitated. Evan supposed that that sort of switch was to be expected — like he can see into the future, and even though he couldn’t always tell what Connor was going to do, that fact alone should’ve at least made him prepared for something random — yet that didn’t make it any less intimidating.

 

 “Your friends—“ Evan begins.

 Connor cuts him off. “They aren’t my friends.” 

 “Buddies? Its kinda…like the same thing, no?” Who did he think he was? Making these assumptions. Evan can feel a flicker of anxiety in his gut now beneath the glare Connor shoots him. He didn’t even realize he went to look, _glance_ really, back up at Connor. And more specifically, his eyes.

 It was another subconscious effort. This one, however, sprouted some questions he didn’t have time to ponder over. Like why he couldn’t keep his own eyes on the ground for once when he hated making eye contact hated it hated it hated it hated it. But despite all of it Evan finds himself noting, even passed the dim moon light, that Connor’s eyes were slightly red and glossy. And pretty. Like, really really pretty in the mix lighting of the desaturated streetlamp glow and whatever luminescence the moon had to offer.

 They’re darker than brown too, Connor’s irises, just a shade off of black that gives them a bleak, desensitized appeal that contradicts how rheumy they are. It looks as if he’s holding back tears but his eyes and the dark hues in them tell a completely different story.

 

 “Its different. You wouldn’t get it.” Connor replies, looking away. Every word is tense, like Evan struck a nerve and it is physically paining Connor to have to explain it to him.

 And Evan knows he has, and he knows its downhill from here on out but he doesn’t stop talking because he’s not what else he can do. Not sure he wants to. Not sure he can swallow the silence anymore because he’s been spoon-fed quiet for years and he is sick of it. And he knows that’s incredibly selfish but if he kept telling himself he wouldn’t be able to get out of bed the next morning, so he hushed the opposing voice and pressed on.

 

Evan pressed on anyway and for someone who can see into the future, it’s almost as if he has forgotten when to stop when he’s already in over his own head.

 “I-I think I do— I mean…I don’t really h-have friends but t-t-there’s Jared and—“ Cut off again, but this time there’s a dangerous lilt in Connor’s voice as he speaks. The energy that generates from the words alone, it make Evan feel as though he would be better off having his mouth sown shut. He shouldn’t have spoken at all.

 “ **Don’t**.” Connor practically growls, and his movements are quick, too quick to evade. So when his hand bunches to a fist around the collar of Evan’s sweater, all he can do is brace for impact as he is shoved into the nearest solid object. Hard. A dark green SUV that jostles in protest as Evan’s back connects with one of the side door handles. His head bumps against the tinted window which echos its dismay through the quiet sound of glass cracking. If his headache wasn’t present before, it sure is now.

 “Don’t compare _them_ to that asshole.” Connor says and his voice is stern when he says it too, but that’s not what captures Evan’s undivided attention. It’s his lips, and how close they are all of the sudden. Evan didn’t register just how close Connor was to him until he was barely even a few inches away from him. And he cannot be thinking like this, now is not the time to be thinking like this but Evan was caught between shrinking back and leaning in, transfixed by the way Connor’s chest moved heavy up and down. His heart reeled, did Connor just step closer? 

 

 His hand is still bunched around Evan’s collar, gripping it like a life line. Holding Evan just as close to himself as he is to the car. Their breathing falls in flawless sync somehow and Evan can’t rip his gaze away from Connor anymore. He smells strongly of cigarettes, its bitter on his breath but enticing all the same. Intoxicating, even. When their eyes lock, Evan catches him falter. For a moment, just a second or two more. His expression softens like he’s forgotten why he was upset in the first place. And its Connor’s heart that trembles so loud Evan can hear it. His grip slacks, but his face hardens in resentment. 

 

 Evan knows what’s coming. His body knows and his six sense knows it even better. He braces for the impact the second he sees it. 

 

 Fear.

 

 

 One punch is all it takes for Evan’s body to crumple to the ground. He slumps almost lifelessly against the Evan-shaped dent in the car door. The window is in ruins. That much Evan can tell from the sound of it breaking alone. Glass shards poke out of his messy, brownish blonde hair. The smell of blood stings at his nose and his vision doubles and spirals around until he can’t feel the searing bursts of pain shooting through his face. Or tell that there’s blood filling his mouth or dripping down from the side of his head, tracing red over his skin like it’s his favorite color.

 

 It’s just his luck that of all times, now isn’t when he losing consciousness. It’s more of a blur. Like the world is moving around him but he’s being kept still, or he’s drifting in and out of sleep. Blinking and the sky looks lighter, shifting and the world shifts with him. Things are loosing their dull colors. He can’t quite feel his body anymore. 

 And he deserves it. He deserves worse than this, deserves to feel all the pain because he brought it upon himself. He provoked Connor, he got greedy and selfish and acted like a little creep just as he did when he was in middle school and you would have thought he learned because nobody liked him. Who was he to assume that that would ever change? That someone genuinely wanted to be around him for longer than necessary. He pushed it. Pushed his luck, Connor’s patience, everything.

 

 He deserved this.

 

 

 By the time he’s found he can’t tell whether its day, night, after twelve or noon. But he can make out pleasantly familiar faces. Distorted and sad, but familiar. One tries to move him which doesn’t go well. Evan doesn’t know. He feels pressure on his waist and then on his shoulders and then on his head. Jared’s barely distinguishable face comes into his peripheral a couple more times than his mother’s does.

 They found him, that’s good. Evan’s world blanches to black, white and red tinted colors. He can’t hear or feel, but he knows. Being in their presence he knows he’s safe now, safer than he was when he was with Connor.

 

 

 

 Its just a shame it doesn’t feel that way.


End file.
